CRM, Philosophy, Baseball & Universal Metaphors

July 01, 2013

CRM Musings and Miscellany: Short Bits

Every now and then I get a hankering to just do these short, pithy (there’s no lisp involved here) things rather than my usual long-winded posts. This is the result of one of those hankerings.

CRM, BPMonline, Kiev

For those of you that don’t follow CRM Idol, shame on you!! Actually, that wasn’t what I wanted to say, but what I was thinking. For those of you who don’t follow CRM Idol, BPMonline is a company, owned by UK-based Terrasoft, that was one of two winners in 2011, our first year. They are a company that has grown dramatically since then, being recognized by Gartner, Forrester and other analyst firms and individuals as a player in the CRM space. They also are an exceptionally warm and friendly company, run by Katerina Kostereva, co-founder and CEO and ably supported by a terrific young staff.

Recently, I had the great pleasure of helping them celebrate the opening of their new office in a 7-story glass building in Kiev (they own it) with an incredible rooftop view of that historic (more than 1100 years old) city. I was there for both an advisory day and to speak to customers – roughly 250 or so – who came from multiple republics in and around Ukraine (by the way, NOT “The” Ukraine. Ukraine). Even though I had a massive recurrence of an upper respiratory infection (long story) the night before, here is the speech I gave for your listening…pleasure…or pain if that’s the way you want to be about it.

The Onion on the Cloud

What can I say? I love this video. No disrespect intended to HP (by me anyway. I can’t speak for the Onion) but this one is AWE…some! And about at the level of knowledge contained in a buzzword.

The reason is simple; they haven’t been able to compete with their larger industry brethren such as Oracle or SAP when it comes to analytics. That was the other great hole in the salesforce ecosystem. They have the Radian6 Insights Platform, which as cool as it is, doesn’t substitute native analytics that can be built to spec depending on what the purpose is.

That said, because EdgeSpring is coming out of stealth mode and has been immediately acquired, (run by a former salesforce employee now returning to the fold), its hard to say exactly what the quality of the platform is. I haven’t seen it, nor had I heard of it. But the idea is at least the right one for salesforce at this juncture. If the product has the capabilities, then salesforce continues to go down the path to becoming an all-encompassing ecosystem for customer-facing applications and services – which, for them, is what they need to do to fulfill their vision.

The Oracle-NetSuite; Oracle-Microsoft; Oracle-Salesforce Alliance

Everyone and their mother (if she is an analyst) had some hypothesis or speculative notion about this alliance. Here are some of the ones worth reading:

These are good starts. My opinion here would just be either corroboration of some of these or noise, so I won’t offer it yet. I’m also still thinking about the implications, some of which are not clear to me. So give me some rope (and time) to hang myself with. I’m sure I’ll speak to it at some point. Read these in the meantime.

Customer for Life:

Esteban Kolsky, one of the world’s leading analysts and one of my closest friends, and I had a discussion a few days ago on the nature of customer engagement and customer experience. Even though we have somewhat different metaphors that we present with, it is sort of scary how closely aligned our thinking is. Both of us had the same perception when it came to how to begin to think about engagement, experience and customers. I’m going to give you all a short précis on what we discussed but please understand this is a mere representation of the richness of the subject matter. Maybe it will be my next book. Then again, maybe not.

There is a strong tendency that companies, when they are planning their customer strategies and technology vendors when they are thinking about developing their enabling applications, tend to think about the customer engagement as a momentary one. That means that if I interact with a company about something and there is this intense emotional involvement, well, that’s engagement. Or, another variation would be if I talk to the company and finish the conversation (regardless of intensity) the “engagement” is over. But that isn’t the nature of engagement. In fact, engagement is characterized by the customer’s ongoing interactions with the company – an ongoing interaction that he or she (meaning, the customer) chooses to have. At any point in the life of that ongoing engagement, it can be intense or casual or intense and then casual, or something in between. The level of emotional involvement is the customer’s choice. The decision to continue the engagement is the key to it. The customer stays engaged because they want to have a relationship with the company that provides them with the results that they want to get from the company. Keep that “ongoing” part in your head for a minute.

Customer experience suffers from the same kind of, though not identical, misperception. Most people think of the momentary experience – the one event driven experience that occurs as the interactions happen. It might be that it takes about 3 or 4 calls or communications of some kind for the event to start and end. That short-term experience is often what businesses are planning for and around. That’s a limited approach and pretty much not the way to think about it.

Another way that customer experience gets shortchanged is when “the” customer experience is misidentified as being what I call a consumable experience. A consumable experience would be the effect that the American Girl doll retail store has on your daughter when she goes there with her doll and gets her doll’s hair done, eats lunch with her doll, watches a play about her doll (or a doll in the American Girl line) and accessorizes her doll – for the price of about $400.00 for the visit. It creates a memory for her that is unmatchable, no doubt, but it is only an aspect of the broader overall customer experience, as we have to think about it, if we’re building programs around it and strategies for it. The customer experience that goes beyond the event would include (for example inclusively but not exclusively):

The storybooks and history and accessories associated with the doll which you can read about via print, or online and/or buy it in the store and/or online.

The ease of the transaction process for the “buyer” i.e. the parent

The type of customer service you get at the store, over the phone, via the web

The store associated interactions with you and your daughter that lead to follow-up activity of some kind – e.g. an invitation to an exclusive event related to the character of your daughter’s doll – and the history of your store visits.

The web presence of American Doll.

The availability of the products themselves when there is an interest in the acquisition (e.g. would you like to be told, sorry its out of stock – and available in two months – and then have to tell your daughter that?)

The ability of the tools to customize the experience (not the customization itself)

There is much more involved but you get the idea. This is an overall customer experience that in the long run leaves you with a feeling that you want to continue your relationship with the company – meaning buy stuff and do things for a long while to come.

There is this saying (which I have to admit, I’ve had some responsibility in propagating) that “the customer’s experience is only as good as their last memory.” While that’s somewhat true, there are multiple nuances to this. The most important nuance is this:

If your customer has had a long-term overall good experience or bad one, it will color the effect of the experience of last memory. Brush strokes color the pencil lines. To put it in practical terms.

If I’ve had an ongoing excellent experience with the company and something bad occurs, I’m likely to forgive the problem or at least give it a lot of leeway without much impact on the long term as long as the problem is solved. If it isn’t solved, I’ll still be with the company

If I’ve had an ongoing average experience with the company, the issue is likely to carry more weight with my long term involvement than if #1 was in play. That means the problem better be solved or it will weaken my resolve to stay with the company.

If my ongoing experience has been poor, then the issue is likely to be the breaking point, even if resolved. Even if I stay, the slightest problem and I’m gone.

In other words same experience in the short term, very different outcomes due to the long term experience – which is the one that ultimately matters more.

Stuff I have going on

Just to keep you up to snuff and to get you going, some stuff I’m doing that I’d of course like your involvement with in some capacity;

CRM Idol 2013 – CRM Idol is now underway. We are evaluating the references of the contestants who, once again, represent multiple countries and regions. We have nearly 80 extended judges representing influencers in the vendor, buyer, media and analyst world. We have those fascinating emerging tech companies that are willing to take a bit of risk to potentially be the breakout CRM company of 2013. For more on this go to the CRM Idol site (duh.)

CRM Watchlist 2014 – Unlike CRM Idol, this is for any company that a. wants to take a shot at being recognized as an impact player; b. is willing to make an effort to do so; and c. wants me to track them in 2014. The enrollment period is still open and will be right up to October 31, 2013. The submission period for the questionnaire is November 30, 2013. If you are interested in contending, please send me an email requesting the CRM Watchlist 2014 questionnaire and in return you will a. get the questionnaire; b. get the 172pp CRM Watchlist 2013 Yearbook; c. start being tracked by me; d. be put in a Google+ group that will activate in the late summer some time and where I will be more than normally accessible. However, given how much I have to do, my expectation is that if you request the questionnaire you’re going to submit the questionnaire and not just do it as a ruse to have me track you. Please don’t disappoint me. My email is paul-greenberg3@the56group.com if you want to be part of this. So far, I have 113 applications, well ahead of last year’s pace, which led to 173 requests and 153 submissions. I’d love to have you. The company size or state of being doesn’t matter. But be aware that this is an impact award and small companies without much of a history have a tough time winning. Though there are 4 or 5 each year that do – based on as much immediate potential as history. Plus, if you enter, I do track you. If that means anything at all.

3. CRM Evolution, August 19-21 – As I hope you know, CRM Evolution, put on every year by InfoToday/CRM Magazine, has been the premier CRM conference – the one industry gathering where buyers, vendors, and influencers co-mingle in a given year. The networking for varying purposes is outstanding and the content is good and the energy is always high. I have had the honor of chairing it now for my fifth year and never, ever lose the excitement. It’s a great place to be. I’d love to meet you and if I already have, to see you again. Come. It’s in New York at the Marriott Marquis Hotel August 19-21.

4. The 56 Group website - Truthfully, I haven’t ever really needed a website. I have been blessed with the good fortune of not having to really sell or work hard at promotion. But there are a lot of things I have always wanted to do that I haven’t been able to do because I haven’t had any place to “go” that was mine. I’ve been a nomad, residing on many other sites, getting friends to graciously allow me to squat on their land, letting me rest on their real estate for a little while as I continued my travels without any place to call my own. However, that will be ending soon. With the amazing work of DRI Global, one of my favorite CRM focused consulting firms (they are in Lisbon), I am getting very close to launching a site far too rich for one person but one that has a somewhat different purpose than the norm. I realized, as my nomadic life continued, that I don’t want a virtual house; I want to live in a skyscraper, a condo building with other people. So my website, built in Joomla (because I know how to use the administrative back end) will be a place where any person or organization that is the in the customer facing world will have a home. Among other things: It will have a community platform that will allow a CRMish person/company to have their own facilitated (by them) community on whatever topical area they want; Selected people will be able to have a microsite for selling their wares with their own catalog and payment system; there will be a loyalty program tied to my services and products with points awarded for not only buying stuff but for participation in the CRM industry and for being socially conscious and/or philanthropic. The site will be able to aggregate content of all types – including videos, audio assets, slideshows, documents, links, you name it. There’s even the capability to take premium and free online courses – and I can write them from the back end of the site. So be ready. The site goes through a run through this week and then it’s a couple of months or more of populating it and then, welcome to your community, if you care to participate. If not, well, I tried. If you are interested in hosting a community, let me know even starting now and let me know what it is going to be about. The rules are: follow the rules of the site and facilitate your own community. While it’s pretty open, I do have the right to reject it out of hand or shut it down. But I’m easy. I don’t know if it will work. There are some interesting questions that aren’t answered yet and won’t be until the communities start. But all in all it should be fun. Lots for you to do. Registered members of any community can accumulate points in the system for the loyalty program. WAY more later but feel free to let me know you are interested in facilitating a community on something related to CRM now if you like. Contact me at paul-greenberg3@the56group.com.

5. SEAT 2013 – I’m guessing that you never heard of the Sports Entertainment Alliance in Technology (SEAT) conference. This is between 300-450 sports executives who gather annually to discuss how to optimize their use of technology in sports. It’s CIOs, CMOs, VPs, and Senior Directors of team after team, league after league, sport after sport. There is a substantial discussion of CRM (2.5 day track) and this year I have the distinct honor of being the subject of a keynote interview for the CRM track. Russell Scibetti, one of the best CRM practitioners in sports (he’s the NY Jets guy) and one of my friends, will be the interviewer. I expect, since I love sports, it will be lively and fun. Just wanted to tell you about it, because I think it’s really cool.

June 20, 2012

I’m presuming that you’ve read Chapter 1 a.k.a. the first post on this. If not, here’s the link. Go do that now. If you’re reading this in the book form, I know you’ve read it because this says Chapter 2 and who reads Chapter 2 before Chapter 1?

Influencer Relations Programs

I think that you probably now have a good idea of the rudiments of what “types” of analysts are out there and a few names that fit the type – though we’ll go into a much bigger list in Chapter 4 along with some of the things that you have to think about when it comes to dealing with individual analysts. This means you, analyst relations person, you investor relations person, you especially public relations person, you influencer relations person. When we get to Chapter 3, I’m going to elaborate on how to do this right, and show you how it gets done wrong, which, unfortunately, tends to be the bulk of approaches that are out there for, lets say, explainable, but not acceptable reasons.

Do you even need a program? Why? Why not? How do you structure that program? Or, at least, who does it well?

Do You Need a Program?

There is something sad about the whole influencer relations (IR) thing, even though, at a certain level, I make my living because of it.

As I mentioned in Chapter 1, what makes the whole thing sad and a little maddening perhaps is that it’s a game.

Maybe you wonder why I would say that?

Simple.

The best of all possible worlds says that companies should be able to stand on the merits of the quality of their offering to the potential customers that they are attempting to lure. If that were true, it would eliminate the need to chat with any influencer or the twenty that you do have to chat up. (Aside: By the way, it would also eliminate the apparent need that several of the technologies companies have to snarkily denigrate their competition in childish and distinctly unoriginal ways.) The value of the product to the persons seeking a specific business outcome from that product would decide the winners of the competition.

But, we don’t live in the best of all possible worlds – or do we? I won’t get into the existential conversation that is suggested by this; that’s Spinoza’s bailiwick, but I will say that we live in a world, instead, where companies do have to deal with influencers.

You have to because:

Influencers talk to customers and prospects

Influencers talk to potential investors

Influencers talk to “markets”

Influencers talk to other influencers

Influencers actually can provide good advice if they do consulting, which many do. And bad advice too. Let’s face it, we ain’t perfect.

That’s a lot of relatively powerful reasons. Let’s see what each of them means.

Influencers talk to customers and prospects

This is done both formally and informally. Formally, it means that customers and prospects specifically either seek out influencers or read what they write about the companies that they are interested in possibly engaging. The institutional influencers get a large percentage of the customer/prospect formal phone calls though the boutique firms and the independents do also. I’d say in the vicinity of a two-thirds to one-third ratio if you had to guess at a number. That would be a customer calling up the influencer at Gartner let’s say, and asking “what do you think of Oracle for um, loyalty management?”

But they also call me, and Constellation Research and Denis Pombriant and…you get the picture. It’s a bit random at times who they choose and a bit perplexing why, but they make the calls.

Don’t forget the more informal channels too. For example, I speak at a conference. I will inevitably get somebody from a company with a proposal out for some CRM related or social technology, asking me about the finalists or about a company they are considering as their choice. With caveats about the generality of my answer, I’ll give them an idea of what I think, if I can. Sometimes, that leads to a more formal (and occasionally deep enough to be paid) discussion with the team that’s making the decision.

The other area where customers look to influencers is in their writing. If I or someone else write an opinion piece about a technology company and their product it is read. For example, literally, every day (I would guess) Naomi Bloom, a world class leading HR analyst/influencer/consultant who is also a member of the Enterprise Irregulars, will get queries in an email from some customer who read something that she wrote about a company of interest to them – and as often as makes sense – she responds.

Influencers talk to potential investors

Again, this is both informal and formal. On the more formal side, there are companies like Gerson Lehmann Group (GLG) and De Matteo Moness (DMM) who pay influencers by the hour to render opinions on both market trends and specific companies within those markets to their clients who tend to be institutional investors from large banks or venture capital firms. I know in my experience with these companies, which is pretty extensive, the general discussion is on CRM market trends, and what do I think of company X, and where it is going relatively to other companies. Interestingly, there is one company that has been the subject of at least 80% of the inquiries over the past 5 years that I’ve been doing these kinds of calls. I’ll leave it to your imagination to guess which.

This is by no means the only avenue that investors and potential other shareholders reach out through. They do it via emails, and meetings at conferences among other places. This happens frequently to all influencers with a public presence. The independent influencers tend to get the bulk of these informal kinds of queries. They seem more approachable than the institutionals though it’s truly not the case. As always, it is a matter of personality when it comes to approachability, not typecasting.

Influencers talk to markets

This means that influencers influence markets. What influencers write and say about markets and trends in markets impact what people think about markets and potential trends. Because influencers are human beings, despite what you may think, (J) if they are writing a piece on the market that your company is involved in, and, for example, they need to mention a company who represents the market well, they are going to mention the companies that are top of mind – even as representative examples. If you have no relationship to them at all, then you won’t be top of mind, whether you’re known to the influencer or not. Again. They are human beings and thus work like any other human beings. The organizations and individuals who they feel connected to, they will think of first. If you’re not, they may think of you as one of their choices but you won’t be the one who’s mentioned.

Let me put it to you this way. You have a choice of two companies, both of whom fit your criteria well for whatever it is you need to talk about. With Choice #1 they are great and you know them well and like them. Choice #2 equally great but you don’t know them. Either of them would be a great choice to mention. Which one would you mention?

That is correct sir or ma’am. The one you know. Why not? There is no reason not to if they are of equal value otherwise.

That said, if the influencer has a paid relationship to the company that they mention, they do need to say that more often than not. There are even circumstances where paying the influencer to do something will actually prevent them from mentioning you in something. My policy (and this just mine, not necessarily someone else’s) is that when I write a contracted white paper for some company, they understand from the beginning that this is a thought leadership piece and that they will NOT be mentioned in the document at all. But then again, nor will their competitors. However, what I will promise is that it will be aligned appropriately to messaging that we both can agree on. But the key here is both. Not one or the other.

With that example, I leave it to you to weigh the value of paying influencers to do something. That’s not for me to do. But regardless of that, there is enormous value in knowing influencers – establishing some sort of bond. If you don’t see that, stop reading this now and go read “Fifty Shades of Grey.” There is a certain irony in the title, though not in the content.

Influencers talk to other influencers

This goes back to what I said in Chapter 1. Influencers in the technology world and especially in CRM know each other well and hang out together both virtually and when possible which is quite frequently, in person – at restaurants, bars, and conferences most likely. In fact, there is almost a circuit that you will inevitably find the influencers traveling which involves Dreamforce (salesforce.com’s annual shindig); Open World (Oracle’s); Sapphire (SAP’s) and either Convergence (Microsoft’s business applications conference) or Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WWPC). The same people travel to each of the conferences – accommodated by their expenses being paid by the conference owners. You’ll see a significant number of the influencers (though not all) at all four.

On the virtual side, you just have to refer to what I said earlier about the organized groups, like the Enterprise Irregulars (EI) and the Accidental Social CRM Community (AC). But it goes well beyond that. There are constant email exchanges. There are other back channels from some of the firms. Many influencers sit on the boards of other influencer groups (for example, Esteban Kolsky and I both sit on the Board of Advisors of Constellation Research). Some of the younger influencers are mentored by the older influencers (sigh) even though the younger influencers may have substantially more of a digital presence. The implication there is that the younger influencers are influenced by what the older influencers say. (I hope. J). There are daily email exchanges. There are daily direct messages (DMs) on Twitter.

There are temporary partnerships that can be as simple as project collaboration – for example a recent collaboration between Esteban Kolsky (independent influencer) and Mitch Lieberman (vendor influencer) for a Customer Service research project.

It can be a temporary institution such as CRM Idol which in 2012 had 9 primary judges all influencers and 71 extended judges – all influencers from multiple domains – vendors, media, institutional influencers, practitioner, boutique influencers, independent influencers and those elusive influencers who influence other influencers – all of whom came together for a specific purpose – to support small emerging technology companies in an annual contest that puts them on an international stage – which influencers in combination have the power to do.

It can be more permanent too – as simple as Brent Leary and I who have been doing what we call the CRM Playaz for about 4 years now - a satirical look at events in the world of CRM and technology – that has thousands of listeners/watchers. To give you a picturesque example of how that works, here is a story I personally loved.

I was in Kiev Ukraine, speaking to 300 people who were employees of BPMOnline, the EMEA winner of CRM Idol in 2011. After giving a speech to them, the first question I was asked by one of the employees was, “when are you and Brent Leary going to do the next episode of CRM Playaz?”

That’s what I’m talkin’ about.

See how it all works?

Not quite, huh? Let me give you the glue.

Add that one other element that I mentioned in Chapter 1 and you get an idea (and only a somewhat fuzzy idea at that) at the intricacy of the influencer networks and how they chat and talk and interact all the time.

That other element? Influencers gossip. That one. They are constantly in situations where they interact with each other and compare notes – in both real and virtual environments. Plus they choose each day to interact with some of the clan. So there are passive and proactive situations that they are involved with.

So think about why your relationship to influencers might have an impact (depending on choosing the right ones – do your own social network analysis – we’ll talk about that in a later chapter) far beyond that individual.

Influencers actually can provide good advice

This section is mildly self-aggrandizing since this is how I make my living, but it is also true. Equally true is that influencers who consult can also provide bad advice. Ultimately, if you hire them to provide you with advice, you have to decide how to use it. But there are two very important specific pieces of advice about getting advice that I think you need to know that are VERY important. One regarding unpaid advice. The other regarding paid advice.

Regarding Unpaid Advice

There are few influencers even including the institutional influencers who are under pressure to be utilized who won’t be willing to give free advice every now and then. But there are a few things to remember regarding this:

Influencers make some of their living being paid for their advice.

There is a limit, even if you’re a friend, on how often you should “tap the tree” for free advice.

When you want free advice, please be sure that you’ve got some sort of relationship with the person. It goes down so much better when you ask.

Here’s the thing. Each of the influencers as I mentioned get asked a number of times in a given day if they would be willing to take a demo. Usually, what the demo requester asks is for feedback when you take the demo, on what you think. While most of the influencers are polite enough to provide some feedback, be aware of a few things, if you’re one of these. Starting a relationship by asking them to take a demo and provide free feedback – meaning about $1000 worth of their paid time for free – is not the best way to do things. Though again, it’s okay to ask. Also, the feedback you’ll get is somewhat generic since you couldn’t possibly be providing enough information in one hour of time to get some deeply cogent information from the influencer – though its often surprisingly good.

Even if you have a relationship and are freely getting advice when you ask, don’t overdo it. This is how the folks you’re asking for advice make a living. For example, there is one company that I genuinely adore and love the people I deal with. For about 3-4 years, I’ve given them free advice because I do that and much of the level of the advice, because I know the company so well is what I would normally charge for. However, I don’t charge them and wouldn’t ask. The thing is that they seem so comfortable with this “arrangement” to never even offer a token gesture.

I’m not resentful about this but I do know I’m reaching a point where I’m going to have to start saying “no” even though my personal relationship with some of the key people at this company is through the roof great. I’ve never had an indication that they were even thinking about something despite the many hours that they’ve had of free advice. They aren’t a charity so there is a limit to pro bono from me because neither am I. There has to be.

What I’m saying is no matter what the situation – no relationship, close relationship, be mindful of the fact that the person whose advice you are asking has to earn a living too – respect it. Don’t kowtow to it. Often it’s a matter of a gesture of thanks, not necessarily a paid contract. It depends on the person. If you’re dealing with the institutional or the boutique firms, you’ll be less likely to get away with the free advice for too long. Though the influencers there are perfectly happy to do pro bono work when it suits them.

Regarding Paid Advice

This one is simple.

If you’re paying for advice, listen to it.

That might seem obvious, but it isn’t. Influencers who are consulting with you are partnering with you to figure out the best course of action based on what you’ve engaged them for. I can’t tell you the countless times I’ve had discussions with influencers who are frustrated because the advice they gave

But another piece of advice:

Don’t be uncritical just because you are paying for it.

You have every right (and even a responsibility) to challenge the influencer who is providing you with advice. Your challenges of what they are saying might range from “that makes no sense given our mission/vision” to “it doesn’t feel right” to “we want to move in a different direction than that.” When it boils down to it, you’ve hired them; they haven’t hired you. You need them to give you a perspective and a plan that can work or minimally suggestions that you can consider that come from a fresh perspective (theirs).

But if you agree with them, then work hard to do what they suggest. The advice doesn’t come from a vacuum and if its advice you can get behind – make sure that you have the internal resources to execute on that advice. If you are limited in your resources for one reason or another and you know that when you are having the conversations with the consultant/influencer – for god’s sakes, tell them! That way they can brainstorm with you on how to get it implemented or whether the plan will need adjustment. A plan in theory isn’t what you’re aiming at here. A plan in action is. So treat the influencer as your partners/fellow conspirator. They’re under NDA anyway and likely to know the corporate politics that you’re dealing with – if they’ve done their homework. So be straight so it can get done.

Things to consider prior to hiring influencers

There is a lot to consider before you actually bring an influencer on board:

Make sure that you have an idea of what you want from them – There is this strategy that a lot of companies practice which is to retain influencers to “be around” to answer questions and advise whenever needed within certain limits. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the strategy, what seems to inevitably happen with this one is that you pay the influencers for a full year in some proscribed way and then forget to use them all that much. So that the value you receive is not near the price you pay. Its great for influencers in one regard. We get paid whether you use us or not. The nature of a retainer. But it’s not so good in that we should be used, if you’re paying. Some companies are good at that. Some aren’t.

So rather than worry about use – whatever format you use to pay an influencer/consultant – e.g. deliverables, retainer – make sure that you have a clear and distinct knowledge of what you are going to use the particular person for. Having them around for some vague future use is not all that great a strategy for you.

Make sure they are the experts that you want – Forget whether they represent Gartner, Constellation or some independent. Does this person have the expertise you need to answer your identified questions? Maybe it’s a partner strategy? Or a product development requirement? Or an approach to getting on to the Gartner Magic Quadrant or Forrester Wave? Or a messaging issue? Or a thought leadership/mindshare plan? Whatever. Ask the questions. Find the experts. Hire the experts. Get the answers. Implement the answers. If it comes from Gartner and an independent or two, then it does. Bring the horsepower you need to get results together and go for it.

Should you engage Gartner/Forrester because you have to? - Let’s make something clear. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Gartner and Forrester are the 800 and 400 pound gorillas respectively, but what makes them useful to you is that they do get a lot of customer queries and top of mind companies who are most often their clients do get referred. Second, they have some top-notch experts like Michael Maoz at Gartner and Bill Band at Forrester who can give you great advice. Companies feel compelled to deal with Gartner and Forrester but that’s nonsense. I am not a fan of some of their leadership but I am a huge fan of some of their analysts. Use them if you need to, not because you need to. Be brave. (J)

Who Has Done it Right? Vendor Influencer Programs That Work

To be clear, I’m going to deal with the influencer programs of technology companies because this is what I know best. I’m going to highlight five specific programs at five different technology companies that do it nearly completely right. Even though most of the companies have more than one program, I’m not passing judgment on the other programs. It’s just that these five stand out individually, for valuable and useful reasons. They also represent the universal best practices applicable to any influencer relations program for any industry. They take unique approaches and have unique strengths, though a few of their upsides are universal. In other words, they rock.

SAP Business Influencer Program

This program with the ineffable (and wonderful) Malcolm Kimberlin in charge is clearly a crown jewel in SAP’s AR/IR effort. Primarily tasked to deal with the independent influencers as individuals and as a force, Malcolm not only provides personal attention to each of the influencers he is responsible for and that he discovers, but has operated as a champion for their exposure at SAP, helping the influencers get to individuals they need to have a discussion with or attend events that they need to be at etc. So that the influencers can do their jobs well when it comes to SAP’s interests. He is also a friend to many of them on a personal level. Yet he never loses sight that SAP’s interests have to always be in the forefront and its part of his job to establish the relationships that are needed to help SAP get considered honestly from the influencers that are in his stable, which seems to be the genuine goal of the program. This program is recognized and lauded among the influencers who know it as one of the best, if not the best in the entire industry.

Lessons to Learn:

Influencers are individuals and treating them that way goes a long way to gaining their trust. Spend the time with them to get to know them.

Treat the influencers as partners rather than antagonists.

Treat the influencers as friends without kissing their butts.

Be a conduit for access to programs, people, and occasional work.

Make sure a good human being not an automaton is running your influencer program.

Oracle Blogger Program

This program is a smaller program at Oracle run by everyone’s favorite – Susie Penner who does a brilliant job. This is distinct and tends to be the where the independent analysts who not only blog but operate as consultants are harbored. Susie is literally personal friends with every single one and actually is genuinely excited to see them – each of them – when she does. The program itself involves access to key analyst events where the bloggers (again, in name only) are given access to things like Oracle’s annual Analyst Day which brings in several tens of analysts and bloggers for a partially-under-NDA program where Oracle exposes their messaging and several of their enterprise apps and hardware senior management to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, meaning questions that can be hard hitting from the analyst and blogger side (more on analyst days when we discuss the rudiments of a program.) Access to people, products and some paid work are all part of Susie’s offering but her program is small and highly selective because she is acutely aware of the balance between personal friendship and the business needs and value needed in return of Oracle.

Lessons to Learn:

Personal relationships matter a great deal (this one will be heard over and over)

Highly specialized programs are value based – meaning there has to be an assessment of what kind of value the relationship with the individual analyst – given strengths and interests – can bring is something that has to be done.

There is a fine line between the personal friendship and the business relationship. It’s not a matter of being crossed to one side or the other; it’s more a matter of making sure that both are balanced. That is the optimal situation.

Microsoft Analyst Relations Program (CRM Group)

This is unique because of the four it’s the only one that has both internal and external people working in sync as a single team. Microsoft employs Waggoner Edstrom to work with them and has for many years in multiple facets of the analyst relations program – many as distinctly different from CRM as you can get e.g. storage and servers. They incorporate all types of analysts into one big program even though they differentiate how they deal with them. So they will deal with Gartner analysts differently than Constellation analysts differently than independent analysts but they are all contacted within the confines of a single program. They consciously spend the time to network through influencers on who to talk to and because they treat the influencers well, they are given that advice freely. I’d say no one does that better than they do.

Their combined Waggoner Edstrom and Microsoft staff team work together exceptionally well and without friction. Both sides of the team are generally well like by the influencers. The Microsoft team changes a lot due to internal promotions or lateral moves, but the Waggoner Edstrom team has been pretty consistent with a few moves now and then. Waggoner Edstrom make sure that the influencers are frequently briefed and have a consistent point of contact, where the Microsoft staff provides the access to the domain (CRM in my case) senior management when necessary to get ahold of. It’s not really as neat as I’m making it. Waggoner Edstrom provides management access too and Microsoft staffers keep the influencers briefed. But it falls that way the slim majority of the time.

They have perhaps the most highly structured and relatively complete program for keeping influencers updated with:

Regularized outreach to those on their networks with pre-briefings on new announcements, changes, and other important events. They don’t bother influencers with lesser matters. They have an acute sense of what is a time-wasting non-starter and what’s important and always are concerned to proceed in the right way.

They also make sure that the influencers are treated as individuals who matter to them one way or the other. They are arguably the most generous when it comes to making sure that expenses are covered for conferences and that the influencers are individually tended to.

Lessons to Learn:

Teams work if the chemistry is right. Don’t be afraid to engage an outside firm if it makes sense to support your influencer relations program. But remember there is a significant increase in cost to do it that way.

Regularize your outreach. This is very important. But there are ways to do it and ways to not do it (later chapter).

Personalize the outreach. Make sure that you’ve done enough homework on the influencers that you want to impact that you understand what interests them and what doesn’t.

Be mindful of the influencer’s time (they should be mindful of yours too but that isn’t the subject of this guide per se. Its all a two way street. Later on that one too).

Salesforce.com Analyst/Influencer Relations

John Taschek runs this program globally for salesforce.com and is supported strongly by Steve Gillmor and a team of enthusiastic and, for the most part, highly experienced IR/AR people. The interesting thing about this program is that John and Steve are among the more powerful vendor influencers themselves, so this tends to almost be a peer program rather than a company-to-influencer program. Each of them had a significant career outside of salesforce.com and carry that career, with the blessing of the company, into the program itself. For example, John was the #1 columnist in the entire computer world before he joined salesforce.com 7 years ago. He has retained his influence by his always-updated knowledge of the industry, his retained connections and his just outright decency. To underscore this, he is one of the few vendor members of the Enterprise Irregulars. Steve was (and still is) the host of the very influential Gillmor Gang on TechCrunch TV. He has a wide net of both followers and friends who not only think the world of the guy but also listen to his always cogent and irreverent thinking.

Now, note something. The way I just described the two was as influencers, not people instrumental in an influencer/analyst relations program. The idea of a peer running a program or at least participating in an influencer program is not a bad one (see Chris Bucholtz at SugarCRM for a similar, but not identical, idea)– and in fact – goes a long way to satisfy the comfort zones that are necessary when it comes to engaging and maintaining relationships with influencers. The more comfortable the influencers feel, the more likely they are to speak well of the company when it’s merited and to not speak badly of the company – sometimes even when its merited. These are no small things when considering the who of a program, not just the what.

But what salesforce.com has also done is bring in influencers as hires to other positions – outside the program. For example, they have former AMR/Gartner analyst Bruce Richardson as a VP of Strategy; Charlie Isaacs, a vendor influencer who is now a VP of Strategy at ServiceCloud; Dave Kellogg as SVP/GM of ServiceCloud. Again, this provides a strange but interesting level of comfort. It reflects/implies a trust in the talents and skills of influencers beyond their ability to talk to customers, investors etc. In other words, it says “we think you have value to provide, you aren’t just people we are forced to talk to.” Or, at least I think it indicates that – though I have no idea if salesforce is conscious of that or not.

Finally, what salesforce has done beyond the people running the program is have a really accomplished on-the-ground team – people like Carolina Grimm. They are not only articulate and personable, but they damn well know what they are doing and know how to balance the needs of salesforce.com with the often let’s-just-call-it “highly demanding” requirements of influencers (more on that later).

Lessons to Learn:

Peer programs are valuable because the comfort level with the external influencers is automatically great. The trust is there already due to a “known quantity” – if you’ve chosen the right person(s).

Having highly experienced on the ground folks as part of the program – makes a HUGE difference in how well the program works.

NetSuite Influencer Relations Program

Mei Li, NetSuite’s SVP of Corporate Communications runs this program and does it so well that it can be considered a paradigm for companies that aren’t spending the budget that the Big 4 spend on their programs.

What makes what Mei Li doing so valuable and almost unique is that they don’t have the somewhat narrowly defined view that you get from a lot of the influencer programs. They understand that:

Influencers come in all shapes and sizes and some of them are not necessarily digital or social, but quite traditional.

That they don’t all reside in the United States and that’s meaningful even to primarily U.S. companies (though NetSuite is global).

Consequently, when you go to a NetSuite event, you’ll see a remarkable mix of traditional media (e.g. reporters from say, the San Francisco Chronicle); international media (influencer freelancer journalists influential in the U.K.) and the digerati (Brian Solis, Ray Wang, and all of the above – social and traditional CRM).

As obvious as this may sound, this approach is not the norm. Most programs place spectacularly heavy emphasis on the digerati rather than the traditional and with the exception of European rock stars like Dennis Howlett who have a substantial presence in the United States, on American influencers. Not NetSuite.

Perhaps even more important (and this theme tends to run throughout the best programs) is the relationship that Mei Li has with the influencers. She has made them friends who would run through walls for her (among them, me). She has established relationships that are amazing and incredibly personal.

A story:

I was at one of the early dinners that she held for influencers – always mixing the crowds by the way – no separation between journalists and analysts at all - and there was this hard bitten San Francisco Chronicle reporter who was cynically wailing on technology and companies in the industry. It was a rather nasty diatribe and was being carried out to all who would listen prior to Mei’s arrival. About 10 minutes into his rant, Mei walked in. He turned to mush and wrapped himself around her finger. She had that effect on this otherwise harsh dude.

The other thing that Mei and NetSuite do well is treat all this with a somewhat wicked sense of humor in a rather posh (as my British compadres say) way. They provide goodie bags, bling things, swag bags, to the influencers that have essentially great chocolates and something particularly unusual – latest was a Lytro camera. While this doesn’t sway the influencers opinions it doesn’t hurt to be treated well either. It doesn’t extend to just the influencers either. They have a high-end outlook with a lot of class also – and that wicked humor. For example, many years ago, they held a large VIP dinner with about 150 in attendance. This was when Steve Cakebread was the CFO of saleforce.com. The prevailing story at the time (not sure it was true but it was the story) was that salesforce.com wouldn’t serve the excellent Cakebread Cellars wine due to a perceived conflict of interest since that was Steve Cakebread’s family. It’s also a pricey California wine. That dinner? Choice of Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc (I think – could have been a Chardonnay) or Cakebread Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon. The joke is obvious, but it is also a superb wine. This is a company that applies its high-end instincts (most of the time using their customers’ upscale goods) to its influencer program due to Mei Li’s considerable clout and the personal regard with which she’s held. She is arguably the most beloved person in the technology company corporate communications world with a program that keeps influencers close and fully integrated with the company.

Lessons to Learn:

Remember there is real value to be garnered from traditional influencers.

Think globally when you think of your influencer networks.

In a high powered, high energy industry, high energy it doesn’t hurt to think upscale – and to use your customers’ products to represent that – if you can afford to.

Make sure that the person who runs your program has the personality and the smarts to do so. Not just one or the other. There is NO compromise on this particular matter.

SOOOOOO….

What’s been the idea for this chapter?

Not hard. There are reasons to engage influencers and there are best practices out there when it comes to doing so. This chapter covered the reasons and the best practices that do exist – at least in part.

Remember something though. What I outline here are programs that are specific to companies with specific purposes for the programs, specific results they are looking for and specific people who are running the programs – and thus, each is tailored to optimize the talents and objectives that are at hand for them. So they might not have the perfect program for you. But pay attention to the general lessons learned from each because they may apply and you can use any combination of them you want to in establishing your own program. But hopefully, you’re doing that because you’re already convinced that you’re going to have to involve influencers in your corporate life.

Okay. On to Chapter 3. There’s still a lot to cover and miles to go before I sleep, as a famous poet laureate of the U.S. once said.

May 14, 2012

What this post is not is a discussion of how to determine influence. I’m going to leave that to my dear friend and brilliant scientist, Dr. Michael Wu, the Chief Scientist at Lithium. He, far better than Klout, PeerIndex and any of the other so-called influence indices, knows how to look at and determine the nature and value of actual influence, not engagement masked as influence.

However, what this is going to be is a series of posts that will provide whoever reads it with the rudiments of how to deal with and think about influencers and the basics around building an influencer/analyst program. Personally, I live in the world of enterprise software, especially CRM influencers. But it generally applies to anyone who needs to reach individual industry influencers. I’m guessing 3-4 posts all in all should cover what I need to. I’ll turn it into a freely downloadable book/guide when I’m done.

To set expectations, you won’t come out of this with a full-blown influencer program, just the basics. But you will have an idea of why you might consider one, what the dos and don’ts are when it comes to dealing with influencers and an understanding of the “types” of influencers. Plus the kinds of instruments you need (besides calipers) to deal with influencers and some of the reasons why.

This series will be organized around questions as “chapters.”

Chapter 1 – The intro and what types of influencers you might be dealing with – with some names of those.

Chapter 2 – what are the dos and don’ts of influencer relations. Is there an influencer community? What

Chapter 3 –Who should I consider engaging and why? The rudiments of an influencer program.

I can’t tell you with any certainty when these posts are going to come out, only that they will and will be done before the year ends. And that it will be converted into a freely downloadable book.

So, let’s kick it off.

Let Me Tell You A Story…What I Mean By Bad

I want to start off by reading something to you. As some of you know, in a given week, I get between 30-50 requests for:

Demos to me of some sort of software

Interviews with some company’s senior execs based on a press release that I’ve been sent which may or may not have something to do with my world, but most certainly has to do with PR team outreach quotas.

A story pitch in my capacity as a ZDNet blogger (these are the most irritating as we will see in one of the next two or three posts)

Because I want to have a life, plus, the PR requests are as often as not irritatingly thoughtless – again more on that later – the bulk of them get rejected or remain unanswered – which doesn’t mean that I don’t look at them. But it does mean I might not get far enough into them that I even know the name of the company they are supposedly pitching for.

Occasionally, there is one that is SO bad, so blatantly horrid, that it deserves some press – without trying to embarrass the individual that wrote it. I got this email in August 2009 and I’ve kept it as the benchmark for bad. This is the industry standard for “never do this, PR pro.” Let me read some of this to you:

“Dear Paul –

I just discovered your blog and I want to say how much I appreciate your insights. You are teaching people to want what we offer.

As I read people who dream about CRM-TNG I don’t see any evidence that anyone (other than my company) is addressing the impossibility of bridging gaps from 1.0 to 2.0 without getting a handle on how people discover, propagate and analyze their own, company-specific best practices….

(The person then goes on to describe their product which I will leave out here because a. it would give away who and what they do b. it isn’t that great in any case and c. there is no way I’m helping this person get exposure)

…We have a demo on our site that introduces some basic concepts, however I think the best use of your time is to work through a webinar with me. You’ll see the latest version as you fire all your toughest questions at me.” (He then closes the email)

I have to presume you see what’s wrong with this email, right? What’s right with it?

Its got to be – and I still marvel over this to this day – the most arrogant PR pitch I’ve ever gotten and as we’ll talk about, I’ve gotten (and I can speak for my bruthas and sistahs in the analyst/influencer/journalist world here, I think), more than my share.

Let’s briefly dissect this, since it is incredibly instructive on what not to do and, to me at least, still remains a source of open-mouthed, wide-eyed wonder.

What’s wrong:

The first paragraph pretty much tells me my value is that I spend my time telling people things that sell his company. (My intent exactly the pitch purveyor says sardonically.). What is amazing is that he doesn’t see that this isn’t right.

The second paragraph pretty much relegates all other companies to the dung heap.

The final paragraph from this person who has never spoken to me at all tells me the best use of my time. I’m glad this person knows that. Thank god one of us does.

This is easily the best and classic example of someone who will end up on the lowest possible place on the rungs of influencer hell. The arrogance is a complete turnoff because it presumes something that this person doesn’t have – a say in the life of the analyst/influencer in any way without any relationship whatever.

That said, I don’t want to get into that part of it yet. I just thought that this is such an egregiously bad example I would air it so you can see it and then you’d know, in your heart of hearts, that you would NEVER do anything like that. Right?

Whew. Okay. Now that this is out of my system, lets devote this post to two things:

Why do you even need to bother with influencers? Why should you care? Should you care?

What types of influencers are there, given the 21st century’s shifting business landscape

Why Bother?

The answer to this is kind of sad in a way. Its “because you have to.” To be blunt, there is a game that has to be played. That game goes to the heart of influencer relations. They are people who can impact:

The purchasing decision of a prospect

The thinking of an entire industry (vertical, horizontal)

The mindshare that a company will have which indirectly influences the purchasing decisions of a prospect

Institutional and individual investors – e.g. large possible and existing shareholders and those considering investment

While I make a lot of my living that way, it’s a bit stupid that someone’s opinion, albeit informed, can have enough of an impact on a company’s future to be worrisome to a company.

But it can. So you have to. Engage with influencers one-way or the other, I mean.

What Should You Consider When Engaging An Influencer?

Good question – and, with the growth of digital media, and attempts out of desperation as often as not, to redefine or at least come up with a meaningful definition of what an influencer is, not as simple an answer as it used to be.

Question #1: What Kinds of Influencers are Out There?

The influencer landscape is getting increasingly confusing, especially with the rise of the independent influencers as a force – for good or evil is something that you have to decide. In the CRM/Social world, aside from the digital brand influencers like Chris Brogan or Gary Vaynerchuk, who we won’t cover here, there are a significant number of variations on the theme, depending on how granular you want to get, how sophisticated a program you want to have and how much you give a crap in the first place. I’ll give you some idea of what the categories of influencer are, describe them and give you a few leading examples of who excels in those categories.

Just to be clear, none of this is so neat that you can tie it in a bow. There are multiple overlaps – while I put someone in one category, they are also part of or could be part of another. For example, Mike Fauscette, who runs IDC’s Enterprise Applications practice is part of the institutional group, but is typically thought of by other influencers as an independent due to his thought processes and his spirit. It can get complicated. And, the reason that matters to you is that you have to deal with behaviors and psychologies, not just categories. Here is the single most important piece of advice I’m ever going to give you when it comes to this kind of work.

Know who the influencer is, not just what s/he is.

Look, what you do with this information is up to you. I don’t care. I’m just the messenger. I thought it would be helpful. I hope it is.

Institutionals

These are the longest established beasts of the industry. Gartner Group is the $1 billion, 800-pound gorilla, with Forrester Group and IDC the next two in line. There are multiple other organizations like Aberdeen Group, Nucleus Research, Yankee Group etc. all of whom provide similar sets of services ranging from market research to consultative. From the standpoint of influence, which is what we want to cover, there are several things that you have to consider. First, customers call these companies to find out whether or not your company is a good enough vendor to be on the list. Second, their varying technology ratings, ranging from the famous or infamous (depending on where you place) Gartner Magic Quadrant to the Forrester Wave, has a big impact on customers, whether you like the results or not.

In recent years, the institutionals stranglehold on influence has been diminished though they still reign as the most influential category. There are a number of reasons for their wane.

The locus of power is shifting to individuals, be they at the large firms like Gartner or solo practitioners. Some of that can be attributed to the tenor of the times because peer trust has become the dominant form of trust when it comes to expertise and influence. In what is something of an analogy, the same way now that in many companies, the salesperson who sold the products to someone is expected to be the account manager for all things including service – by the customer – even if the company isn’t set up that way – is the same way that influencers are now looked at. “I trust Michael Maoz, not Gartner per se.” I trust Kate Leggett, not Forrester, per se.” On the other hand, some of the reason for the individual influencer trust is simply a matter of TCO. The larger institutions are considerably more expensive than the independents. I’m not speaking to the quality of the work because, like anything else, that’s a matter of individuals. But the options especially when the price is factored in are greater than ever, and companies are taking them up. The law of diminishing returns can sometimes set in – regardless of the brilliance of the institutional influencer’s work. It can simply cost too much.

The kinds of expertise needed are broader than ever and no one institution can cover all of them so it often is a matter of going where the expert you need is – the best of breed approach. There is no reason to do things all Gartner, all Forrester, or all any group or individual. Go to the expertise not the company is becoming more the norm than it has been.

The organizational structure of the larger companies has been much slower to change with the times. They have baggage. That doesn’t make them bad or good. Again, that’s the purview of the individual analyst/influencer. But that baggage can make dealing with them slow, rigid and frustrating some times.

This is not to say, don’t deal with the institutionals. Some of the best analysts and most influential people in the customer-facing world reside there. Some examples of the greats.

Michael Maoz (Gartner Group)– Michael might be the best analyst in the CRM world. He is certainly one of the most highly regarded. He is honest, forthright, and tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear or, for that matter, what Gartner wants you to hear. His advice is, even if it is brutal at times, (delivered with good humor though), right.

Ed Thompson (Gartner Group) – Ed is one of the stars in the customer experience firmament and Gartner’s best speaker. He is the only speaker to consistently kick my ass in speaker-ranked events. J. He has a strong CRM knowledge. HQed in Europe, he is in demand a great deal as a speaker and consulting analyst – when it comes to the customer journey. Count on the dude.

Mike Fauscette (IDC)– Mike runs the IDC Enterprise Applications Practice and has a great big picture perspective that gives his customers a way of tying what they do to the market as it moves – a gift. An independent spirit in an institutional role, he is known for his creative way of reconfiguring the business universe you thought was the one to the one it really is

Kate Leggett (Forrester Group) – Kate, who has real world practitioner and vendor experience is known for her work at Forrester in the customer service area. Where she stands out is her ability to craft the multi-channel strategies which treat social as a component, not a gift from the gods. She is also well regarded among all the other analysts and often is grouped with the independents.

Bill Band (Forrester Group) – Bill leads the CRM practice at Forrester and does strong work when it comes to the nitty gritty of CRM. Because he has a consulting background, he is able to delve deeper than most analysts in helping companies define programs, not just strategies. Something a bit rare in the world of market research – which, incidentally, he does very well.

Boutiques

The boutiques are essentially the intermediate answer to the institutionals. They are often ex-institutional analysts who found the larger companies stifling for one reason or another so they took their already considerable influence with them and formed a small firm. Interestingly, this goes to the heart of what I said earlier. In the case of many of the influencers, the customers they have travel with them – and have no qualms abandoning the companies that the influencers left and joining the new firms. At the heart of this is still, regardless of where you are, the trust in the individual influencer, not the firms that housed them.

The boutiques are rooted in sound methodologies, usually modified versions of the approaches that the founders learned at their original companies. But the boutiques are tougher to type because their business models and purposes are vastly different; none of them necessarily even compete. But what they have in common is that they are, for the most part, less pricey than the institutionals.

To determine how to deal with them requires some serious research on your part. That’s because the services that they offer vary as widely as the boutique firms that exist. For example, Altimeter Group provides consultative and thought leadership services; Constellation Research is more research focused, than consultative with a strong thought leadership service component; Dachis Group seems to be migrating to a combination of consultative services and products. It goes on and on.

Do NOT underestimate their influence. Some of them like Ray Wang of Constellation Research and in a very different way, Brian Solis of Altimeter Group are among the most influential analysts/thought leaders in the business world.

Since this is a piece on influencer relations, I would be remiss if I don’t mention some representative standouts when it comes to boutique influencers.

Ray Wang (Constellation Research) – Ray is a former Forrester analyst who created Constellation Research, focused on market research (as opposed to consultative work) by the seat of his pants in 2011 and has made it into a real success. Some of that is due to Ray’s seriously huge influence and his quality as an analyst and market researcher. Some of it is due to the quality of his partners and principals. His personal focus is more enterprise than pure CRM but he is also seen as a leader in Social CRM. Among his many accomplishments – Analyst of the Year for the Institute for Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR) in 2009..

Brian Solis (Altimeter Group) – Brian going to Altimeter Group, founded by Groundswell co-author Charlene Li, was a huge coup for Altimeter Group. Brian literally rewrote the rules of public relations during the early part of the 21st century and the use of social tools in the agency world is largely due to the strategies he developed early on. He has migrated successfully to the larger world of social business and the enterprise and is a leading speaker and thinker there too. Interesting thing about Brian is that even though he is occupies rarified air (take a look at the forewords to his books. Here is a review of his latest, “The End of Business as Usual”), he is among the kindest people I have ever met.

Dion Hinchcliffe (Dachis Group) – Even when he ran his own boutique firm, Dion was a leading light in the world of enterprise collaboration a.k.a. E20. He has since become one of the leading proponents of social business – that unique combination of E20 and social CRM (to simplify it). He is known for his ability to develop a fully fleshed out strategic picture of both the business end and the technology components of that business end in a social business. Some of the best blog posts I’ve ever read for their content and completeness. He is highly respected for good reason. A recent author, get his (and Peter Kim’s) book, “Social Business By Design”

Laurie McCabe (SMB Group) – Laurie is one of the few true small business CRM thought leaders. She might be the only one who isn’t independent. Her market research has been exceptionally strong along with her technology product knowledge and there are few who excel more than her in these areas. Helluva nice person, too.

Independents

This has been the area that has seen the greatest increase in “power” over the last few years. I would suspect the reasons are that there has been (see above) a shift in who and how we trust with 65% of the respondents in 2012’s Edelman Trust Barometer saying that “a person like me” is their most trusted source – meaning an individual that they perceive to have similar interests. That level of trust invested is much easier with an individual than a company – any day of the week. Plus the independents are free of the constraints of the other categories of vendors and thus are able to write more, attend more events, keep their visibility high – without worrying about who they are accountable to for billable hours.

The trust in the independents has grown also, in part, because the advice that they’ve given to their vendor clients has been sound. They have often been around for years in the industry and have grown up with their clients and have grown up as the industry itself matured. They are trusted because they’ve been tested over time – often having come from the practitioners or the vendors themselves.

With the growth of Social CRM and social media usage, there has been an outgrowth of an entire new generation of business influencers who have been outspoken, intelligent and more often than not, right. They have also been “inducted” into the more established influencer circles (more on how all this works in a future post. But trust me, mentoring the younger influencers is something that goes on all the time by the older influencers. However, there is a bit of a dark side to this too. More on this in that future post). When it comes to price, their overhead is not that high so therefore they are the least pricey of all, but there is no consistency in how they charge either. Each to his own.

Here are some of the independent stars.

Established

These are the ones who have been around the block a few times. More than a few times. Have run at least a marathon’s worth of trips around the block. At it for a while with their reputations and practices well established, they are in demand constantly for one thing or another. They need to be tracked if not engaged. Or engaged. Get to know them.

Me – My ego demanded my inclusion – and who am I to ever deny my ego? So I included me.

Esteban Kolsky – Esteban is a seasoned influencer with a strong focus on customer service. He is a former Gartner analyst with formidable research skills and a wide influence net. He is trusted by the industry and the influencers alike. Read his two page notes and you’ll see what I mean. A member of the Enterprise Irregulars (this will be meaningful later)

Denis Pombriant – Denis is unique, the only influencer of any “type” who sees the macroeconomic and social issues that often envelop the things going on in the enterprise software industry. A long time analyst, business development and market research guy, who headed up Aberdeen’s CRM Practice until shortly after the millennium turned. A member of the Enterprise Irregulars.

Brent Leary – I’d love to leave it as he and I being the CRM Playaz, but there is much more to Brent than that. He is arguably the leading authority on small business CRM and his influence runs to both the CRM and the small business (even when non-CRM) world. He is a specialist not just on Social CRM but also on music, but that’s a story for another day.

Vinnie Mirchandani– Vinnie is also a former Gartner analyst who is an eminence grise in the world of enterprise software. He is widely read, highly trusted and well liked in the technology industry. His scope is beyond just technology though. He watches and comments on innovation with his blogs deal architect, and New Florence: New Renaissance and his books, The New Polymath and his just released “The New Technology Elite.”A member of the Enterprise Irregulars.

Josh Greenbaum - Josh has been an influencer and an analyst for 25 years, though if you saw him, you’d think that meant he started when he was 8. He is one of the toughest and fairest of the influencers, with a very deep and knowledgeable analysis of the nitty gritty of the technology industry, at a level I can only imagine. He can frighten vendors with the dead on accuracy of his analysis and his very tough questions but they know he’s always fair.

Newly Emerged

These are the younger set, who have just become players in the influencer world. Companies that are smart will start courting them now as they grow into their role as the now impending new generation of influencers, analysts, and consultants. The earlier you meet them, the better for you.

Brian Vellmure – Brian is becoming increasingly visible to the technology vendors, having been known to the practitioner community for a little while now. He is now being recognized as one of the up and coming thought leaders especially when it comes to all things Social CRM. Key to Brian? He gets the technology and the strategic reasons for it.

Mark Tamis – Mark is making his mark in Europe. Paris based, Mark is being seen as someone who can move companies to adopt social and CRM technologies. That’s not surprising since he’s been in technology for years – with major stints at BEA and Oracle. Guy is smart, really smart, and yet manages to stay a good person despite the brains. Read this man’s posts and hear this man frequently at industry conferences. Lots do.

Silvana Buljan – Silvana isn’t truly an up and coming star – she has been a star in Southern Europe for a long time. One of the foremost authorities on change management, this founder of the Buljan Associates consultancy is becoming known well beyond Southern Europe. Watch for her scheduled appearance at CRM Evolution 2012. Change management is one of the most undervalued areas in building a customer-centric company, yet the most important. Silvana is one of the few that knows it and knows how to make sure the world does it.

Vendor Influencers

Again, we’re into the granular world. Vendor influencers are a tricky category. The reason is that there are two types of vendor influencers – those with only a little or no agenda who have strong independent credentials, mostly established prior to their joining the vendor, and those with a more concrete agenda who are not pure of motive but have enough independent chutzpah and are universal enough thinkers to garner the respect of the industry and customers to begin with. We’ll call the former Type A and the latter Type B. Not at all related to their psychological profiles.

Type A – Little Agenda

With one notable exception these tend to be the former external influencers who, even upon joining vendors, didn’t lose their credibility or their caché.

Chris Bucholtz – Chris is currently the editor-in-chief of CRM Outsiders and resident thought leader at SugarCRM. He comes to SugarCRM from InsideCRM where he established himself as a significant thought leader in his own right. Even while working for a vendor, Chris maintains his independence and is trusted by the industry for his cogent pieces on the nuances, the concepts and the benefits provided by Social CRM. He is a mensch.

Michael Wu – He is another one of the exceptions to the rule. He is homegrown – meaning he wasn’t an influencer prior to his stint as Principal Scientist of Lithium. He has zero agenda, being pure of heart and a pure scientist. His work on influence, gamification, smart data (rather than big data) is superlative, groundbreaking stuff.

Mitch Lieberman – Mitch is one of these amazing influencers who has managed to stay an influencer despite spending a significant amount of time at vendors to begin with such as VP of SugarCRM and currently a Vice-President at Sword-Ciboodle. But this hasn’t silenced his voice at all. Highly respected fella.

Jeff Nolan – Jeff actually was an insider prior to his stint at Get Satisfaction. He’s managed to retain that status. He (along with CEO Wendy Lea) is also the major spokesperson for the company and yet remains he is dialed into an incredible number of significant networks. An unbelievably knowledgeable guy, he has a sharp analytical mind and is definitely one of the most influential guys in the industry as well as one of the kindest ones.

Type B – A More Significant Agenda

These guys tend to be people who have gone beyond their leadership position at a specific vendor. They have established enough independent credibility to stand out even though they are typically responsible for their corporate agendas. These guys might have been independent prior to their “vendorhood” Jeff Nolan at Get Satisfaction or they became influential while at the vendor – Anthony Lye of Oracle; Laurence Buchanan formerly of Capgemini.

Anthony Lye – Anthony runs the Oracle CRM global practice and has a huge corporate portfolio with the most recent acquisitions of Endeca, InQuira, ATG, and RightNow all under his purview. Clearly, he has an Oracle agenda, but he also is a highly respected industry veteran who has understood the twists, turns, and trends in the CRM world, and has been willing to present his thinking on them without selling. We all think a lot of him as a truly independent mind, regardless of the required agenda.

Laurence Buchanan – Laurence recently left Capgemini EMEA and went to the management services group at Ernst & Young Advisory as a Director in the Customer Centre of Excellence for the EMEA region focused on Digital Transformation, Social Business and CRM. This was a coup for Ernst & Young, because Laurence has firmly established himself as an independent influencer despite his required corporate agendas. He has been a leading voice for social CRM, customer experience and has a vast knowledge of the technology landscape. He is firmly on the cutting edge of social business though, as a wise person, knows that traditional channels are still part of the equation. He is also a helluva writer and speaker.

Media Influencers

This one is perhaps the most ironic. I’m a J-school graduate (that would be journalism school). I’ve had multiple jobs in journalism ranging from a low paid proofreader to a low paid managing editor. But the one thing that I learned in journalism school – aside from spell names right, which I do less frequently as I get older – is that we should write unbiased pieces. Does anyone whatsoever believe that’s true? Not me. All pieces are a matter of opinion up to and including the selection of what pieces make it into a publication and which ones don’t.

So why is it that we think that journalists aren’t influencers? They are – obviously so, if you think about it for a brief moment. What we have to look at when it comes to the CRM/Social world is not whether journalists are influential – they are – but which journalists are the most influential. The reality is that there are key publications and key writers whose primary profession is something in the journalist world from writer to editor to publisher that influence buyers and our industry.

David Myron – David is the editor in chief of CRM Magazine and someone who is greatly respected throughout the entire industry. He tends to operate behind the scenes but his opinions when he states them – matter. He has a VAST knowledge of not only who is who and what is what in CRM but also how it works. He chooses to be an editor/journalist; he could be a consultant/analyst if he wanted. Just a really nice guy, too.

Ginger Conlon – What can I say about Ginger? As editor-in-chief of 1to1 Media, she is a long-standing insider in the CRM and now social world with a great deal of clout with a “c.” Aside from being a superb and exceptionally bright journalist, she is someone who has a lot of experience in seeing how the pieces work in CRM so she is able to provide a cogent viewpoint on how the world views CRM.

Barney Beal – Barney, the News Director of TechTarget’s SearchCRM has made it into the widely read property it is now. Barney’s power is not only in his knowledgeable writing on CRM but in how he constructs the SearchCRM. He makes sure that we all understand how it works, why its here, and what it is and is highly influential in the way that he frames that.

Chuck Schaefer – Chuck, the owner of Vantive Media, which owns CRMSearch, the new kid on the block, is actually not a new kid on the block himself – though I don’t mean to say he’s old. He was former CEO of Aplicor and has recently become a thought leader in his own right with his cogent opinions as expressed on the CRMSearch site. People listen to this man – and he is a genuinely good-hearted human being, which makes listening to him a pleasure.

Gerhard Gschwandtner – Gerhard is the founder and CEO of Selling Power and is one of the most influential guys in the sales world. Among the keys to his influence is his stewardship of the Sales 2.0 Conference, which is the crucible for contemporary thinking on sales and the place where one goes to see the leading minds. He seems to follow the influential journalist pattern right down the center because he, too, is a truly nice person.

Gary Lemke – Gary, a long time industry veteran, has been the long time editor of CRM Advocate, a voice for the customer that has been around for more than a decade. A media influencer who takes a reasoned and sometimes provocative approach to industry thinking, he is highly respected among his peers and the customers who read him.

Neil Davey - the man behind UK-based Sift Media's Mycustomer.com, Neil commands enormous respect among the influencers themselves and the general "in the know" CRM community because of the quality level of his content; the contemporary nature of the site and the honestly of his editorial outlook. He is someone who is paid attention to especially in Europe and increasingly in the U.S.

Influencers Who Influence Influencers

This is arguably the most interesting and the least known of all of the kinds of influencers out there. These are the people who the more public influencers will often sit at the feet of. They are people who typically only write occasionally but they are never invisible. They are highly experienced and trusted by the people that group of people who I’m describing in all the other areas. I would be in touch with these folks if I were you. Seriously.

Our representatives:

Bruce Culbert – I need to come clean here. Bruce is one of my best friends and a business partner of mine in BPT Partners. I only say this so you can’t throw it at me – it actually has no bearing on why I am explaining who an influencer who influences influencers is. Bruce is the man who created e-business at IBM, ran Bearing Points global supply chain and CRM practices simultaneously and then ran professional services at salesforce.com for awhile. He is someone that we all know and all listen to because of his experience and his good heart – thus the wisdom dispensed and mentoring he does is truly valuable. He is the epitome of the kind of person I mean. You won’t find a lot of writing from him, though there is some, but you will find universal respect.

Louis Columbus – Louis is perhaps the most prolific writer of this lot – and a really good one. He works for Cincom Systems, so you could squeeze him into the vendor influencer category too, and that exposes the artifice involved in squeezing people into categories. Louis is constantly developing themes on the customer experience and the technology side of the equation. But where is truly influential is in the relationships he has with the influencers he knows. He is one of those people that influencers simply trust – so his considered opinion matters. That is powerful stuff. Which he always delivers with a grin.

Michael Thomas – Michael works for Microsoft. Michael is the president of the CRM Association. Michael truly gets Social CRM. Michael is really smart. Michael is a genuinely good human being with kind words for everyone. Michael is someone that we all are willing to pay heed to when he speaks. Nuff said.

Organized institutions

Finally, for the purposes of this post anyway, there is one other thing to consider – the influencers “secret societies.” They aren’t really that but I love the intrigue implied in the idea. But they are organized communities of influencers who speak often on Google Groups or the Skype IM channels and they consistent of either people from multiple backgrounds, institutions and venues or a single venue who communicate as a community on the backchannel. But they reflect two fundamentals that are important to know when it comes to the “secrets” of influencers.

They are incredibly knowledgeable people. Perhaps some of the most experienced, powerful and brilliant minds in the industry. Customers, other influencers, vendors, investors all confer with and listen to them.

They (we) gossip. That sounds hilariously funny because it can be the same kind of snarky gossip that you would hear on TMZ, as well as the more topical and intellectual kind, but it isn’t actually funny at all. Its important that you get this one.. These groups are social networks that are made of people who enjoy their participation in them because they are trusted sources. Meaning if you do something as, lets say, a vendor, either good or bad, it will be known to more than just you because whoever you “did” it to, will speak about it among their friends – just like you would. The reality is - an injury to one is an injury to all at least an injury broadcast to all – and it will be broadcast As a disclaimer, if it’s under non-disclosure either formally or informally (meaning someone asked them not to say anything), nothing will be said – these are the most honorable professionals I’ve ever had the pleasure of dealing with and who you will ever meet. But anything that’s not under either formal or informal NDA is in the category of “possible fair game” and it often will be socialized. So be smart and understand who and what you’re dealing with and you can’t go wrong. If you just understand what you’re dealing with, you can go wrong.

Enterprise Irregulars – this is the “Skull and Bones” of enterprise software – probably the most influential organization in this world of influencers. A mix of independent analysts, a few vendor representatives and an eclectic few others, it is an unmatched aggregation of highly experienced industry veterans. They communicate in a back channel regularly, they have a website that aggregates their various writings and kind of gives you an idea of who some of the members are (hint: look at the blog roll). The total years of experience in this group probably would if strung serially start at the Cretaceous. It is an intelligent, formidable body and deep in its knowledge of the industry it stems from.

Accidental Social CRM Community– Also self-labeled the A.C., this is a group of quasi-organized, somewhat younger influencers in the Social CRM world. A multi-continental group, the group is comprised of many of the leading Social CRM thinkers. They are a mix of independents and there are fair amounts that are from the larger consulting/systems integrator firms. No vendors in this group. They are not as well established as the Enterprise Irregulars but the quality of discussion, while different, is every bit as good as the EIs. There is some overlap between members of both groups. This is an organization to be mindful of if influencer/analyst relations are your game.

It should be noted that a number of the existing analyst institutions have back channels that have been formally created for their own analysts, advisory board members etc. to have discussions and collaborate. The tools used are typically Skype, Google Groups, Yammer on occasion and rarely an internal community or wiki-like collaboration space.

My reason for mentioning this isn’t only to identify a couple of the groups that exist out there but to reinforce the point that we all talk. A lot. And in ways that are classically social – meaning networks of people communicating 1 to many and many to many. A lot. All the time. 24X7.

My reason to “type” influencers isn’t to put any one in a box. The irony of all of this is that, regardless of the institutional dynamics that might be inherent among the social networks involved in this, it still means you are dealing with human beings who have different skills sets, different contexts that they operate in, different approaches, different agendas and different experience. Each of them and several of them may be suited for what you have to do. The types I mention here are loosely fitting and there are always exceptions and some who don’t really fit the mold.

The other thing to understand, which I will get into in a future post, is that there is an actual CRM/Social CRM community that consists of vendors, influencers, customers, that know each other, see each other a lot and are quite friendly, despite some internecine battles here and there. They are not formally anything but they fit the criteria of a neighborhood pretty well. I’ll get into more details about what the dynamics of this are in a future post. Though don’t expect a tell all. This isn’t a gossip piece. This is a “how to deal with influencers” piece that I’m writing as much for self-interest as for yours.

Key Takeaways

So what’s the key lesson here?

Do your homework: understand who they are, not just what they are. That means learn something about them as actual human beings, not just influencers. More in that post that will also cover the community.

The individual influencer is the one that matters, not the firm they represent.

But you can’t ignore the institutional dynamics.

Choose their abilities according to your needs. Not their organization or their reputation.

Remember, influencers, like all other human beings of any “type”, talk. So realize that you may not just be talking to one person, even if you are. This is to your advantage or disadvantage, because, like anything else, it depends on what you say.

Okay, next up sometime….whenever, Chapter 2. Hope this is a useful start to you.

ROI = Social Media CRV

There have been an amazing number of attempts to quantify the benefit of social media so that we can get a traditional result to measure against. Most of them fail or are indecipherable stretches that really don’t apply. The problem is that social media interactions are in a simplified world, only of a few types:

Identifying and capturing some unstructured information that is quantified by assessing the emotional state of the person’s who is the subject of the information.

Identifying a number of interactions which define the volume of interactions or the source of interactions

Taking an action based on the social media interaction - capturing a lead and starting the process of lead nurturing or opening a case due to a social media based complaint.

But when social media is treated as a channel for the interactions and is integrated with CRM customer records and CRM systems, then the ability to measure an ROI for social media becomes not only possible, but also important.

What does that mean?

Well, lets start with this. To me, as we enter what I’m calling the era of customer engagement, we are seeing a more mature view of social media and its use as part of a multi-channel strategy. Social channels have become one of the sets of channels being considered along with email, phone, etc. – They do represent a disproportionately influential segment because conversations in social channels have the ability to scale from one to one to one to many or even many to many.

What this implies is that the measurement of social media ROI has two components. One is strategic – and there it isn’t measured separately. It is part of the achievement of your planned overall return. The other aspect is tactical. And this is where it gets a bit dicey.

Ultimately, any company trying to measure social media ROI needs to be able to think beyond the traditional marketing measures like reach. But the problem is that many of those things that you’re looking to get a return on are nebulous when it comes to measurement.

For example, how do you measure your impact on influencers which is one area that social media is used for by some? To do that, it implies that you know how to measure influence digitally.

“Do you?” Well sure, you say, a Klout score. Sorry. Not the case. Klout is good at measuring how engaged an individual is on social channels at any given time but doesn’t really measure influencers of the buyer kind or the industry kind. Three weeks off the grid would lower your Klout score but wouldn’t necessarily impact your influence. You see that don’t you?

But social media measurement ROI does need to be associated with meaningful metrics, nonetheless.

Measuring Advocacy

Bet you think that I’m going to talk about Net Promoter Score as a measure of ROI for social media, right?

In his book, “Managing Customers for Profit,” Dr. V. Kumar speaks of an extension of customer lifetime value (CLV) that he calls CRV – customer referral value. For those of you not acquainted with it, customer lifetime value is the measure of the economic value of a single customer and his/her household over the full length of a relationship that the customer has with a particular company. It is a measure of direct revenue impact.

But what customer referral value does is take a look at the power of a brand’s value in the social channels by operating under the assumption that customers who may or may not have a high CLV, could be strong brand advocates who will refer their friends and others to the brand. Then some of those friends and others buy the products or services based on the brand referral. This is indirect revenue impact.

To determine that, there is data that needs to be collected from both social and traditional channels. There are four questions that have to be asked to prepare to do that. They are:

Would you recommend this company to someone you know - the traditional Net Promoter Score question? This signals intent.

Did you recommend this company to someone you know? The key question – signals action on the intent. About 1/3 actually do recommend.

Did they become a customer?

Are/were they a profitable customer?

These four questions are the foundation for the ROI of social media. If you use social media to determine who the brand influencers are and then go a bit deeper to find out who those brand influencers actually influenced, you can get an actual ROI for your social media usage. Which is what you want right?

December 26, 2011

Gamification becomes Serious Business

No matter how old you are, human beings never lose their desire to play. Play makes us happy. Each of us, and I challenge you to deny this, wants to have a happy life. We do what we have to in life to improve our chances to have one. One of those things is to have as many happy moments as we can accumulate throughout our lives. Even if we aren’t all that universally happy (not projecting here), each of us has had times where we were that we can point to.

Ray Wong, Gartner, M2, all say gamification in a big way starting this year over the next few. I say, amen, brothers and sisters.

Insight Solutions will emerge as a technology category of its own

One thing that we can’t ignore (okay, that I can’t ignore) is that if customer engagement is to work, then insights into how customers want it to work are becoming increasingly necessary.

But again, we’re dealing with scale and we’re dealing with a dynamic social web with constant conversations that are liquid and changing continually. They are being carried out in multiple channels – channels that number all in all, in the thousands, both public and private.

The current generation of social media monitoring tools with a few exceptions – Radian6 and Attensity come immediately to mind – are somewhat passive tools that scour the web, find the conversations and organize unstructured data in the form of a report that provides the users with what is being said, usually in a positive, negative or neutral vein. The better tools provide strong analytic capabilities that give some insight into how customer segments are thinking or how “nodes” are responding. That would be Attensity, for example. Or they provide highly focused, highly specific, well thought out intelligence such as the sales intelligence focus of InsideView. Radian6 takes this to a whole new level with their Insights Platform which takes Radian6’s vast data mining and information organizing capabilities and integrate other technology tools that combined with Radian6 provide deep insight into individual customers, if that’s where you want to go. With the future capacity to tie this to salesforce.com or database.com or data.com transactional data, and contact information, we are beginning to see how an insight solution would work. It’s obvious limitation is that it will be tied to salesforce.com only customer data. But that aside, we are talking about something that at least foreshadows what are a future class of applications. Bryan Jennewein, the product manager for the Insights platform calls the results “social insight”, which is not an inappropriate term, in this case.

But Radian6 hardly plays in its own sandbox here. There are a number of emerging players in this space which I’m calling “insight solutions” who have been misplaced in or evolved from other market categories. Currently, the runaway number #1 of these for me is Coveo, which came from the Enterprise Search space. Following them is Allegiance, emerging from the Enterprise Feedback Management world and Lattice Engines, which inhabits the sales intelligence world uncomfortably. Another newcomer that has flown under the radar is WiseWindow, a "mass opinion business intelligence" (MOBI) provider, who specializes in vertical insights among other things and come from the BI world All four have the technology to provide insights. Each takes an entirely different approach to attaining the knowledge that can support insight, but each minimally provides dynamic data mining, collaboration and analytics. All four either can or do integrate with CRM, by the way.

This is not to say that more “traditional” analytics such as text and sentiment analysis, business intelligence, etc are going to be replaced or suffering. In 2012, they will be even more important than they are now.

Several vendors are either upping the ante or providing new ways of looking at the data – all in the name of recognition of the importance of insight – into customers primarily, but also employees, opportunities, processes, etc.

For example, Clarabridge is both upping the ante and providing a new approach to analytics by taking sentiment analysis to a whole other level beyond the traditional five-point expression (very positive, positive, neutral, negative, very negative) and ratcheting it up to eleven points using semantic analysis so that there is context to the sentiment, besides. Recently, SAP, despite the fact that they own the best analytics firm known to man – Business Objects, recently announced a partnership with social analytics provider Netbase to become a VAR that would sell “SAP Social Analytics by Netbase” to their customers. They realized like others before them, insight is 2012 table stakes and social data is the tableware.

Analytics as a whole is becoming fundamental to all business strategy. 2012 brings more of that than ever and the rise of a new category customer-focused solution that provides a combination the surfacing of dynamic information and the analysis of that behavior as dynamically as it is surfaced.

An optimal customer experience becomes the core of what CRM can provide. Finally.

In 2011, we saw a significant shift away from the pure left-brained messaging of CRM toward a much stronger focus on customer interactions, engagement and behaviors. Traditional CRM vendors for reasons that are both good and bad began to rebrand their messaging around the idea of technologies that can support an enhanced customer experience. The good reason is that they needed to do that and they did. The bad reason is that they did it as a reaction to historic CRM bad press a lot of times, rather than just recognizing that the context had shifted and we were entering a period that demanded that customer experience and engagement got attention. Right results, sometimes wrong reasons.

Vendors like Sword-Ciboodle have taken it further and begun to present their product portfolios not as a menu of features and functions but around solution sets that help you do your jobs better. The name for it is jobs-based thinking. The academic framework for that is Service Design Logic, something that is gaining increasing credence in the business world. If you look at the Sword-Ciboodle site, you’ll see that it’s got a roles-based focus. The reason for this is that there is a recognition that we are dealing with behaviors – both customers and employees, not just products.

But the interest in providing the “right” customer experience high. Witness these numbers that come from the “2011 State of Customer Experience Management” put together by ubër-expert Bruce Temkin, the leading customer experience influencer and best of the lot in my book. These numbers are indicative of both where things are (not new but embedded) and where they can go (toward maturity). Temkin found that:

Nearly 60% of the companies surveyed have a senior executive in charge of customer experience

There are 30% of the companies that have 20+ employees who are delegated to the customer experience

There have been positive results (measureable ones, people!) from Voice of the Customer programs in 84% of the companies using them

The percentage of companies that received a moderate or better competency rating rose from 22% on 2010 to 30% in 2011.

· Only 17% of respondents believe that their executives regularly support decisions to trade off short-term financial results for longer-term customer loyalty.” (source: Temkin, 2011 State of Customer Experience Management)

That means that there is a lot of room to grow and in 2012, I expect that we’ll see a continuation of these efforts to improve and get measurable benefit, though nothing dramatic.

The only real “trend” that will likely stand out when it comes to customer experience in 2012 is that I think vendor messaging will be increasingly focused around it. That’s not really much of a trend, if you think about it. You feel me?

Social marketing becomes an integral part of an explosive marketing automation sector

Social marketing and the broader, customer-facing interactive marketing are becoming ubiquitous as customer engagement becomes the increasing focus of companies thoughts.

This is not surprising and if you look at it, the technologies available are once again more primitive than the efforts expended by the practitioner marketing departments.

The vendors are beginning to recognize the value of social marketing and are trying mightily to catch up and either incorporate it into their existing marketing automation or revenue performance management (sigh) applications and services. There are only a few genuinely useful pure social marketing or niche related apps out there at the moment, notably CRM Idol 2011 finalist Crowd Factory. One example of a niche related vendor would be the FuzeDigital reputation engine.

2012 will bring us continued explosive growth in marketing, especially social marketing because we have reached ubiquity when it comes to utilizing social channels as part of campaign planning. The more engagement is on the table, the more that marketing – with social marketing functionality as a prerequisite for a contemporary marketing suite – will grow dramatically. Forrester has it partially right with the increase of some 20% year over year in interactive marketing expenditures.

Short Bursts: Other Trends

These aren’t meant to be full blown prognostications – just short takes on interesting trends that I’ve noticed that I want to make you aware of. There is too much in the sections above for me to draw these out but I didn’t think I should ignore them even if I don't spend a lot of digital ink making the case.

Mobile CRM - As in 2011, the creative development of mobile CRM will be driven by the tablet market and by the ability to analyze large amounts of data quickly that will show up on the tablets. The iPad will still be the dominant driver of mobile CRM application development. But we will see more activity around mobile payment than we will around anything else as Near Field Communication (NFC) is deployed on devices to a much greater extent than 2011 and Google Wallet grabs share of….mind as more and more businesses adopt.

Small Business SCRM – The success of Hubspot in 2011 and the emergence of a myriad of other technology platforms and companies who are small business focused (see CRM Idol again for many of the technology companies who concentrate on small business) is an indicator of the interest that small business has when it comes to doing business using social channels. I’m going to leave the details to Brent Leary in a forthcoming post here on the small business CRM market in 2012.

Big Data Becomes Really Big Data - The issue of how to data the massive increase in data and especially desirable data becomes possible the highlight of 2012. This is being fueled by the substantial increases in unstructured data on the social web, in the use of video, images, audio files and other rich data and by the growing ubiquity of the cloud all leading to what IDC feels is going to jump to more than 2.7 zettabytes (that would be 1021) in 2012, which is 48% higher rate of growth than 2011 – and 90% of it will be unstructured (Source: IDC Predictions for 2012: Competing for 2020). Managing this data will drive not only the storage and infrastructure markets, but will make even more “traditional” areas like Master Data Management (MDM) something that businesses will be investing in. This is a massive opportunity and a massive issue.

The Cloud – 2012 continues the bandwagon though the hype will slow. This year not only did we see Amazon continue to be the cloud to beat, but companies like Oracle announce their “public cloud” and SAP went deep into the cloud as they announced at the recent SAP Business Influencers Conference not only buying SuccessFactors shortly after they announced that they wanted to significantly compete in the cloud but also announcing that from here on they are going to architect what they produce as cloud and will adapt it to on premises, rather than the other way around – a 180° turn in philosophy and development strategy. We also saw the cloud become the delivery system of choice, if you take it from the rate of adoption, not the amount of deployments out there in the on premises v. the cloud competition. Since this is short, let me recommend the always fantastic, quiet thought leader, Louis Columbus’ great aggregation post on cloud adoption. Read that to get the picture. On premises still is the dominant installation for CRM and other business technology, with hybrid deployments a popular option – and one offered by companies who have historically been invested in on premises software. In fact, all the leaders but salesforce.com offer it as part of their portfolio. More of this in 2012 as the unstoppable cloud juggernaut continues to gain delivery mechanism share.

Innovation/Co-Creation – This will continue to be in the purview of the most progressive companies – the leading edge of thinking and practice in business. But only at the lowest levels – feedback etc. will it be pre-eminent. The true practitioners of co-creation are just beginning to make their appearance on the global stage. I expect we’ll see most of this in the Fortune 3500 companies. I’ll be writing more on this and you’ll be seeing guest posts on this subject in 2012.

Knowledge Management – while there will be no slacking off of the existing models for knowledge management – accessible knowledgebases being the core of that – there will be considerably more focus on dynamic knowledge with as close to real time response as possible and the use of knowledge for insight (via analysis). The technologies to meet the requirements for the latter are just beginning to appear in the market. Knowledge grabbed from customer user forums and other external "unstructured":

Applications Marketplaces – Application marketplaces are becoming increasingly prevalent as more and more companies begin to view things from the standpoint of providing their customers with customized/configurable ecosystems. So now, in addition to the technology company marketplaces we know and…whatever emotion you want goes here….we are seeing even government agencies like the U.S. General Services Administration or the U.S. Army providing these application marketplaces to their constituents – in the former case, the other U.S. federal agencies and the latter case, varying Army commands. There is no reason to think that this is going to slack in 2012. In fact, look for it to accelerate.

The One By Itself

This is the most important prognostication for 2012. Period.

The Yankees Win the World Series – Locked and loaded. Our starting pitching straightens itself out, Teixeira gets his batting average back to a normal .290 or so; A-Rod revives his career enough to be a difference maker; Jeter just continues from his 2011 second half and Rivera of course is Rivera. Thus, The Yankees Win. The Yankeeeeeees Wiiiiiiiiin! Yay!

Finally

Look. This may be the most uncomfortable "forecast" I've ever made. It wasn't easy. I'm evolving a perspective I've had for almost 10 years and it has implications that are important, though not that dramatic, for how the industry will be developing and the strategies that need to be considered - if I'm right.

And that makes me uncomfortable. But I've learned a few things in my 62 years that I think have done me well over the years - some of it due to adversity that makes my skin very thick. Let's just say criticism doesn't exactly phase me.

First, I've learned that you are always learning. That means that what I am writing here while I think its useful is only the beginning of something that I hope will have some impact but that will be constantly evolving even as it does due to collegial inputs from smarter people than me and those who are testing out what I'm hypothesizing here and finding how to tweak it or to show me that I'm wrong.

But if there is one thing I've learned that probably will never change, there is a way to think about all this. You make as good a case as your observations allow and then get on with your life and see how the next phase plays out. Which is what I'm now doing for 2012.

The Winners

The Americas contest was particularly hard fought with Get Satisfaction edging out two of the three other contestants. Edging out was the operant phrase. It was a tough race and there were differences of opinion between the judges and the popular vote.

If you remember, back in April, I made the statement that this is an "easy contest to enter, but hard to win." Exactly what this proved to be. The process was long, though not grueling. There was a lot of interactions, mentoring programs, a lot of questions that had to be answered. We had to learn some things on the fly - like incorporating a semi-final round before the finals. It turned out to be absolutely necessary and important to have so we could learn more about the companies that were (and weren't) ultimately chosen for the finals.

Congratulations to both Get Satisfaction and BPMonline. Well played, teams, well played.

The Judges

The Primary Judges - me, Brent Leary, Esteban Kolsky, Denis Pombriant, Jesus Hoyos, Silvana Buljan, Mark Tamis and Laurence Buchanan functioned as the brain trust throughout this process and were responsible for making whatever changes were made to the process and deciding on things that had to be decided on - even beyond the voting - when it came to companies who did good things and bad things. All are back on board for next year which is totally exciting.

Breaking Down the Vote

Ha! You thought you were going to get a breakdown of the vote totals for the finalists. Not going to happen. Too bad. That would be prurient. Instead, let me tell you a few other things that would be prudent, not prurient.

The voting for CRM Idol exceeded our expectation with several thousand votes coming in. I'll tell you a little about who voted and what it indicated. We had a series of additional (optional) questions that roughly 22% of the voters answered which gave us a flavor of who was voting and how they understood and implemented CRM. The results were interesting for sure. Here's a few stats:

The voting was geographically pretty well divided with:

The Americas - 44.0%

EMEA - 38.4%

Other - 17.6%

It was mostly users and manager/execs who voted with 29.9% and 27.9% respectively.

In the question that was "My Company uses the following CRM(ish) modules (choose all that apply) the results were a bit eye opening really - a little surprising. The top 5:

Contact Management - 50.5%

Sales Force Automation - 49.0%

Help Desk - 41.9%

Social CRM - 37.1%

Marketing Automation - 36.2%

What is surprising here is that the #1 CRM application is contact management - which indicates a small business presence typically or a confusion between contact management and sales force automation which is something that has existed for years. (e.g. some people use salesforce.com for contact management. But others use ACT! for sales force automation). Most surprising, to me at least, is that #4 is social CRM as distinguished from social media monitoring which was #9 on the list. Meaning there was an understanding that there is a difference. Also that so many companies feel that they are deploying it. That fascinates me because if it is any indicator at all, there is considerably more usage of SCRM technology than I had imagined. That's something that I'm going to dig into early in 2012 to find out about the actual usage of Social CRM technologies in business - and what people think that Social CRM is.

What people felt that they really liked about CRM Idol was overwhelming one of the actual reasons we created the competition. Over 63% felt it was "learning about other companies" - by far the biggest reason. That means as far as what we wanted to do for these small companies vis a vis the general public - we did (pat, pat, pat on the back for us.)

What did the voters want to see more? That was pretty close. Top choices - greater focus on CRM categories - a conclusion that we are taking to heart - and one that we've been talking about a lot as far as modifications for next year. The second most - more commentary from the judges. That one I'm not so sure of. If they mean more commentary from more judges - maybe. If they mean more commentary from the primary judges - well, some things you just don't get in life. We were pretty stretched to have to review nearly 60 companies within 7 business days (or so) of their reviews and we did it. But it wasn't easy. More commentary from the 8 primary judges is highly unlikely, even if was a popular suggestion. I'm just sayin'.

Finally, we asked what would you like to see more of or less of for CRM Idol 2012? Interesting result. The biggest answer overwhelmingly was "None of the above (48.8%). Since "Other" with room to specify was also a category, and was the least answered, we have to assume that people who voted for none of the above were happy with what we provided and the way that we did it. That's a reasonable assumption, right? You would think so.

#2 on that, though, was CRM categories (though in a bit of a flaw in the questioning on our part, we don't know if less or more is what they meant). However that dovetails with the answer to "Next year I'd like to see" greater focus on CRM categories as the #1 thing. So we hear it LOUD and clear.

Coming Up

There's a lot to be done in the period between contests and I'm sure that next year, the preparation will be starting a lot earlier than it did this year. We learned a lot along the way and will be taking our lessons from the streets - though not mean streets, nice streets - and the feedback we get. We'll be making changes accordingly.

In the interim, we are going to encourage all companies that have been participants to keep participating. First, because we have a community now of the competition organizers who are influencers in the industry and subject matter experts par excellence and companies that are now emergent, whether they won or not. Plus the prospects for the 2012 competition will be invited in to join the community in advance of next year so they have a shot a some visibility and great interaction with the influencers and this first graduated class of CRM Idol participants. Our slogan/mantra has been "once a participant always a member" and we will take that seriously. To that end, the inestimable Kelly Craft has volunteered to be our Community Manager and we all gratefully took her up on her generous offer. The woman has mad skills, passion, enthusiasm, and serious chops when it comes to all this.

I can assure you of one thing. Next year we are going to take paid sponsors for the contest so we can hire someone to handle some of the logistics which was massive. I spent 2-3 hours a day for 7 days a week from late April thru now - with some hiatuses - doing this and it was more work than I ever anticipated. Plus financed the bulk of it out of my pocket. Though I have to say that Brent Leary generously paid for some of the costs and DRI, the Portuguese open source solution company did the website for nothing, saving thousands for us and doing a brilliant job.

I'm not complaining. I chose to do it that way. But honestly, I'm going to need help for the logistics and sponsors will be important to helping finance that.

So, I'll keep you posted of course on the things upcoming and I'm sure I'll be trying to wangle some participation time out of you to help out next year so that we can keep highlighting these companies and their great potential.

Stay tuned here. Thank you to the primary judges, our media partners, our extended judges panel, our voters and of course, those that spent the time and effort to participant in CRM Idol 2011. It has been awesome - and will continue to be.

August 29, 2011

The first round of CRM Idol 2011 - The Americas is now officially over with the EMEA competition looming. We have completed the demos/reviews of 39 companies for the Americas (we lost one due to personal reasons at the last minute) and about 25 of the reviews are completed and published. You've seen 14 of them. You'll see the rest of them over the days to come. Hopefully, by the end of next week, you'll see the announcement of the names of the 12 semi-finalists. For more details on all this, go to the CRM Idol website where we'll be announcing their names. Its gonna get intense.

Antharia LLC

Fortyfourfish is a very complete CRM tool for not-for-profit organizations. Featuring an intuitive and easy to navigate interface, a full set of features (including donor-management, development, volunteer management, and an end-to-end relationship data model for non- profit), and a very low entry price.

Indeed, in a market mostly controlled by Blackbaud and Convio, and where starting implementations are bound to cost upwards of $30,000-$40,000 for just the first year, their entry price is a comparatively frugal $1,200.00 per year per person (it is a hosted model, so unless there is an increase in the number of people using it - that price should remain through the rest of the time it is deployed).

fourtyfourfish, the name of the product, is a creation of Antharia - a consulting organization for not-for-profits. The product's tight integration means that the professional services for the product are provided by Antharia - a well known firm in the not-for-profit world. One of the most salient features of the product is its flexibility and ability to be customized as needed - which is what Antharia does in addition to traditional business and management consulting.

The CRM product generates low recurring license revenue, and the product generates few other sources of revenue. The business integration with Antharia gives the combined product and service company a sustainable revenue and business model, solving our concern over viability.

We were impressed by the quantity of features and functions it covers, both as a not-for-profit product and as a general CRM tool. It covers the basic gamut of functions necessary to identify, contact, interact, track, and retain customers (or in this case, donors and volunteers). One of the most remarkable features is the development tool, which is not something seen in anything but high-end products. It seems at first look to be a very complete module and to do its job quite well.

While the interface seems a tad busy and at moments may seem overwhelming - it is easily customized and shrank or expanded (more or less information used, per the needs of the customer) to deliver an intuitive way to capture and incorporate information into specific processes. We would definitely recommend those interested in adopting this product to think about the experience they want to provide for the volunteers or employees using it and right-size the number of functions (and options for those functions) to deliver a cleaner and more productive interface.

While we like the price point, as we are sure their clients and prospects do, we are concerned over the addressable market. A combination of not-for-profits traditionally preferring more expensive solutions, a product that is mostly used by smaller non-profit, and a finite number of non-profits in the United States (international expansion is hard due to compliance regulations) yields a low potential client pool.

While we don't foresee Antharia or fortyfourfish needing additional funding - or other sources of income - we are concerned about their potential for growth. We would like to see more funds invested in marketing and sales to ensure a continuity of the brand by deeper adoption in their market.

InvisibleCRM

InvisibleCRM (Invisible) is a vendor that rose from the "good old days" of CRM with Siebel, PeopleSoft, SAP, and Oracle - their initial product was promoted as a simple, more powerful way to deploy SFA functions for companies who did not want to commit to full-size CRM Suites. Their product is a series of "bridges" or connectors between different CRM products and an organization's systems.

Invisible's solution is very interesting from the integration perspective. Working better in situations where two or more organizations need to "integrate", or work together using different CRM solutions. Acting as a integration layer for CRM tools, Invisible captures the necessary data from both sides and injects in either everyday windows functions (such as file manager, or outlook, or even word), or into the corresponding CRM solution.

The real power of the solution comes down to this: users don't need to learn new interfaces or menus to interact with the solution (as it is tightly integrated into the everyday functions users are already using), and integration between systems is seamless. In fact, the more systems that reside in the background and that it has to interface with, the more it shows its prowess.

Their demo showed us integration with Salesforce (one of their preferred integration partners) as well as other systems. The items related to the different contacts, opportunities, and tasks from Salesforce were presented in the Windows Explorer (file manager) application as folders and files, and double-clicking on a file brought the information from Salesforce in a format that was pre-programmed for the demo. There was no visible latency in these actions and the data seemed to update in real-time directly in the systems in the back.

We can see the value of Invisible in complex situations (e.g. sub-contracting in a project where two consultants need to sell or deliver together). There is a certain amount of value in being able to integrate the data from the two systems in an easy manner. It can save time, effort, and resources of building a single-purpose interface and integration; it saves time and money in training users as well - since they continue to use the tools and procedures they already know.

The value that Invisible brings, however, is downplayed by the potential market. There are limited instances where companies would choose this product, and even then, the agreement and integration work necessary between partners is not an easy thing to agree to. Even If we were to see Invisible in situations where only one organization needs access to the information - there are still limited situations where navigating through file manager, as opposed to a CRM interface, would be preferred.

We like the technology involved, and we like the speed at which Invisible performs when working; the demos were virtually free of wait time when using or adding data. We are concerned for their growth potential with the model they use. A potential future for Invisible is to build an ecosystem of partners to OEM these bridges and embed them in different applications directly. It would extend their reach and make the model easier to adopt.

Aplicor

Aplicor has a cloud-based Business Management solution targeted at small and medium businesses (businesses with 500 or fewer employees). Aplicor is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida with customers in United States and overseas. Their showcased solution is Aplicor CloudSuite7 which provides both CRM and ERP solutions.

One of Aplicor's key differentiators is its ability to be cloud independent. Aplicor's customers can select where the application can run based on their cloud strategies. Aplicor can host on their own cloud, or the customer can host in a traditional IT situation or on external clouds like Windows Azure and Amazon.

Aplicor is built on the Microsoft technology stack and all functionality is included with the solution under one single price - $89/user/month. The price is the same for any cloud model or software delivery alternative such as private hosting, multi-tenant hosting or on-premise.

Aplicor is creating a partner ecosystem with a mix of solutions and cloud partners in order to expand market share, branding and revenue generation. Aplicor provides agility and flexibility as key benefits to its customers via the partner ecosystem. This adds the ability to provide hybrid solutions to the small and medium market.

Aplicor differentiates in the CRM marketplace on the user experience and tool sets. The user interface looks easy and clean. The system comes with videos and tutorial for self-help, including a central hub to gather information from RSS feeds and customer records. This hub should eventually provide social components with integration to Facebook and other social channels.

Aplicor did a rethink of the traditional GUI and came up with two - a traditional user interface and a panel and tiled view that helps users to set up the system to mirror their work styles. For example, panels can have views, graphs and objects.

Some key aspects of the CRM functionality and user interface are:

Drag and drop fields to group and sub-group list of customers in order to drill down on specific customers.

A Google-like search is provided to quickly jump to customer records and objects.

Customer records and views can be bookmarked under a Favorite Menu to quickly jump back and forward between different places in the application.

Ability to perform LinkedIn, Google and Twitter searches from within account record.

Drag and drop any screen, graph, object or view into the workspace.

The administration and setup of the application is also drag and drop driven which provides a very easy interface for administrator and business users to configure the application. Workflow is part of the application using a graphical interface to create business rules using Microsoft's workflow foundation. With the workflow you can perform inserts, updates, alerts and monitor changes based on the business rules.

Aplicor Airwaves is their mobile application platform where forms can be created via the CRM application admin tools. These forms can then be deployed on any mobile device. However, the look and feel is like a Blackberry interface no matter the device. Part of the Aplicor's roadmap includes the creation of CRM apps for iPhone and Androids devices.

Overall, Aplicor CloudSuite7 is a good CRM system with a clean and easy to use interface that comes with an all-inclusive pricing that is very attractive to small and medium business. This positions Aplicor to be an interesting alternative to other CRM solution like Salesforce.com and SugarCRM.

August 25, 2011

Okay, its now 2pm and I'm getting weirdly sleepy. So I'm going to post three more CRM Idol reviews that I'm begging you, pleading with you on my hands and knees to write your comments on here or on the CRM Idol website in the reviews section. This can actually have an impact on the semi-finalist choices and we're going to be counting on you to review the videos of the finalists when the time comes which means your vote will count. So this will be good prep work. Like voting for Lys Agnes, that gorgeous opera singer on America's Got Talent to get to the finals. Well, not like voting for her, but at least you get the idea.

Tasker.ly

A large problem in Customer Relationship Management is the lack of products serving B2B2C models. Traditionally seen in franchise business, distributorships or where sub-contracting is a core part of the industry, there are virtually no packages available. For the most part, those available focus on either marketing or service ignoring the complex situations that arise where there is more than traditional service necessary.

Tasker.ly solves the problem of complex business-to-business partnerships dealing with a customer. The package does really well what it sets out to accomplish: make sure that processes involving parties from both businesses do what they are supposed to do in a methodical and repeatable manner. True to its name, Tasker.ly focuses on the tasks necessary to deliver marketing and service functions in such environments.

Although they did not explicitly indicate it in the briefing, we can see a deeper focus on very complex environments, with thousands of tasks to be accomplished form the moment a process is started until it is completed. In a complete framework, and tightly integrated with Gmail for message delivery, Tasker.ly makes sure that tasks are completed on time, and if not it ensures appropriate escalation and notification.

While we agree that the product does a very good job of managing a complex set of tasks and monitoring processes to make sure things happen as needed, there are three areas of concern for Tasker.ly:

First, they focus on solving a specific functional problem without defining well the target market - who they are selling to., Based on their recent launch to the market, they have a short but interesting client list - but there is on cohesiveness to it. While this is understandable behavior for an emerging company, they need to focus more on who they are targeting, what their offer is, and tightening the message for that target market.

Second, their pricing needs to be revised. Starting at $ 1,000.00 per month, pricing makes it almost impossible to engage them, with few exceptions. During the demo we saw a few business cases that would match those exceptions, but no very well defined use case. They need to figure out better not so much how to solve the problem, but rather what problem they are solving.

Finally, they need to develop a better long-term vision. The product is good, there is no question, as to what it does - and it delivers in an interesting manner (the interface could use some simplification - but given the complexity of the functions it performs, it is quite intuitive). However, we have a hard time seeing how the product grows beyond its single functionality and matures into a closer-to-CRM solution.

Overall, it is a good product with limited functionality that could be used in more use cases if they were to invest in product management and strategy; we would like to see them better focused.

thedatabank

Founded in 1998, thedatabank (TDB) is one of the earliest pioneers of online fundraising management software aimed at the nonprofit sector. Cofounder Chris Hanson brings twenty-five plus years of fundraising and database marketing experience to the company, while his partner Mark Paquette brings more than twenty-five years of software development experience to the thirteen person organization.

Having raised $250K in 2001, TDB has been cash flow positive since 2002, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 14% since 2006. Subscription revenue accounted for 80% of overall revenue, with an CAGR of 20%.

According to information provided by TDB, there are approximately 1.6M registered nonprofits in the United States, a 60% increase over the past decade. Nonprofits in the USA employ nine percent of the population, and account for 11% of GDP.

TDB currently focuses their efforts on the segment of nonprofits with annual revenues between one and ten million dollars - a group made up of approximately 250K organizations. Industry groups they target include environmental, civic, human rights and educational organizations. TDB currently has over one thousand organizations using their online service. They estimate their competitors have a combined total of less than 30K organizations using these services. With these numbers being a fraction of the overall nonprofit market, there appears to be good opportunities available for TDB to grow.

In a field with a number of competitive offerings, there are two vendors leading the market - Blackbaud ($300M annual revenues) and Convio ($80M in annual revenues). These two are particularly competitive at the high end of the market - over $1M in annual revenue. TDB counts as a competitive advantage being one of the only pure SaaS service providers in the space. And with a large number of nonprofits not having experienced IT expertise on staff, and limited IT budgets, TDB believes its position as an online service provider will be attractive to the growing number of organizations needing a fundraising management solution.

The core of TDB's solution is the fundraising system designed to manage online and offline transactions. The solution is built on the foundation of a centralized database, with integrated application modules for important areas, such as fundraising management, email marketing, advocacy, volunteer management, voter management and event/meeting management. TDB says customers select their service to build better relationships with donors, volunteers, activists and event attendees. The fundraising and advocacy modules are especially attractive to organizations looking to manage relationships at the individual donor level. They feel this is why 60% of new business come from customer referrals, and for their high 40% lead conversion rate.

The email marketing module allows organizations to send out email blasts, manage subscriptions, and integrate forms on a website to filter data right into their TDB account, making it easy to follow up with prospective donors, volunteers, and advocates. You can also create forms to put on your Facebook page to have those submissions automatically come into TDB. There is also bulk-texting capabilities built into the system to further communicate with customer segments.

The advocacy module uses geocoding to automatically assign political districts based on a person's address. You can also create an "alert" email that takes advocates to an Alerts Page to try and cause immediate action on an issue. A recipient can see what the issue is, and who will get this communication if they follow through with the action. They can then click to send email, fax, letter, etc. in support of the specific issue. Automating this process increases the number of advocates that follow through with the desired action.

From a fundraising standpoint one of the fastest growing areas is for attracting new donors is personal fundraising pages. This allows organizations to set up personal campaigns at the individual level, and increase donor conversions.

Pricing for TDB depends on the number of contacts (size of database), number of modules used, and the number of users accessing the system. The basic system setup with 5,000 records starts at $170 a month. The average client spends $400/mo, for 18,000 records and 5 user accounts.

With TDB having its foundation in the late 1990s, the bulk of the application is written in classic ASP code, with a SQL Server backend. This has some obvious limitations, which is why TDB says they are going to do a re-write of the interface. They do have a partial API available now, but expect to have a full API available by the end of this year which should open up access to integrate personal info, contact histories and transaction histories.

Another goal for next year is to raise some expansion capital to develop additional functionality to move down into the lower segments of the nonprofit segment - particularly aiming at the 700K organizations with $100 to $1M in annual revenues. By developing a self-serve version, TDB feels that allows smaller organizations to come in, sign-up and have immediate access to a system with a basic level of functionality and customization capability- at a price point less than $100/mo. They feel that would provide lots of opportunities to grow their customer base.

TDB has a great deal of knowledge and expertise to assist organizations in improving their fundraising management activities. The functionality is rich and well executed. They do understand they need to upgrade the application architecture to allow for greater flexibility and agility moving forward. And they also need to develop and implement a mobile strategy that will be important to deliver in the near future. But if they are able to make things happen, and up their brand awareness efforts, they should be able to successfully compete for the growing number of nonprofits needing fundraising solutions.

Antharia, LLC

Fortyfourfish is a very complete CRM tool for not-for-profit organizations. Featuring an intuitive and easy to navigate interface, a full set of features (including donor-management, development, volunteer management, and an end-to-end relationship data model for non- profit), and a very low entry price.

Indeed, in a market mostly controlled by Blackbaud and Convio, and where starting implementations are bound to cost upwards of $30,000-$40,000 for just the first year, their entry price is a comparatively frugal $1,200.00 per year per person (it is a hosted model, so unless there is an increase in the number of people using it - that price should remain through the rest of the time it is deployed).

fourtyfourfish, the name of the product, is a creation of Antharia - a consulting organization for not-for-profits. The product's tight integration means that the professional services for the product are provided by Antharia - a well known firm in the not-for-profit world. One of the most salient features of the product is its flexibility and ability to be customized as needed - which is what Antharia does in addition to traditional business and management consulting.

The CRM product generates low recurring license revenue, and the product generates few other sources of revenue. The business integration with Antharia gives the combined product and service company a sustainable revenue and business model, solving our concern over viability.

We were impressed by the quantity of features and functions it covers, both as a not-for-profit product and as a general CRM tool. It covers the basic gamut of functions necessary to identify, contact, interact, track, and retain customers (or in this case, donors and volunteers). One of the most remarkable features is the development tool, which is not something seen in anything but high-end products. It seems at first look to be a very complete module and to do its job quite well.

While the interface seems a tad busy and at moments may seem overwhelming - it is easily customized and shrank or expanded (more or less information used, per the needs of the customer) to deliver an intuitive way to capture and incorporate information into specific processes. We would definitely recommend those interested in adopting this product to think about the experience they want to provide for the volunteers or employees using it and right-size the number of functions (and options for those functions) to deliver a cleaner and more productive interface.

While we like the price point, as we are sure their clients and prospects do, we are concerned over the addressable market. A combination of not-for-profits traditionally preferring more expensive solutions, a product that is mostly used by smaller non-profit, and a finite number of non-profits in the United States (international expansion is hard due to compliance regulations) yields a low potential client pool.

While we don't foresee Antharia or fortyfourfish needing additional funding - or other sources of income - we are concerned about their potential for growth. We would like to see more funds invested in marketing and sales to ensure a continuity of the brand by deeper adoption in their market.

Wow. We are pouring it on aren't we? CRM Idol has so far been interesting and you'll see at the end of week one and before we go to Dreamforce, an analysis of what the primary judges have noticed so far, given what we've reviewed. Some fascinating findings though keep in mind our sample is 39 companies That's for later.

FreeCRM

FreeCRM (CRM ASP, Inc.) was founded with Angel funding in 2003 by Eric Stone, a person who clearly loves what he does and prides himself on the technical prowess of his solution. The company has 10 employees. Their CRM solution is focused on the small business market with most of their customers being very small businesses. They have a freemium model that drives their business and that we'll discuss a little later in this review.

The Market

FreeCRM is focused clearly on the smaller side of the SMB market. With their freemium model, they claim 220,000 customers in 120 companies, with roughly 85% of them (give or take 5% at any given time) taking the free version and 15% (again, give or take 5% at any given time) paying customers. That would mean, with these numbers being presumed to be approximately accurate, roughly 187,000 free customers and 33,000 premium customers, still a significant number. They also state that they have a 5-10% conversion rate when it comes to free to premium subscriptions, decent by any standards.

The bulk of their customers come from companies with 1-50 employees, and are under $20 million in revenue. They have perhaps 15 customers who are part of multibillion companies, primarily on small sales teams and perhaps 5-10% of their customers are at multi-national entities.

The Product

What makes FreeCRM more than just interesting is the incredible level of functionality that Eric incorporates into his solution, and then gives away. That is the strength - and the weakness of this company. This company may be among the few with the most complete functionality for an on-demand CRM product that we've seen incorporating pretty much all you need when it comes to sales, customer service, and interestingly enough, marketing - a place where the better known CRM suites are often deficient. Additionally, he offers less frequently available capabilities when it comes to almost all small business CRM suites such as Knowledge Management, blogging (though we've seen this more frequently in the first 20 CRM Idol contestant's applications than we do in the rest of the CRM world), and even audit trails.

Here's a screen to give you the idea of the scope of this application.

FreeCRM Pipeline Management

As impressive as the breadth of functionality is, so is the depth of each of the functions - at least what we've seen. For example, the sales force automation component has what you expect at the level of salesforce.com or other major SaaS players. Lead management, opportunity management, pipeline management, integrated calendars, sales targets are just a partial list of the extraordinarily rich functionality that FreeCRM provides.

It doesn't stop being impressive with just its applications. The company has two geographically diverse data centers - impressive enough, right? Well, these data centers are not just up and running but are compliant with Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Billey and Federal Rules 26 and 34. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, the data facilities have been audited as SAS 70 compliant by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). What all this means is what you see is what you get, when it comes to the controls that are claimed by FreeCRM at the datacenters.

To add to this, Eric Stone, in the demo/review, claimed that they are at "five 9s" uptime right now (99.999%) and "looking forward to six 9s."

Their product architecture is built on Linux and MySQL, like many of the other participants in CRM Idol.

It has very little social integration, with the initial odd, but interesting choice of Skype to start, rather than Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. However, the integration of these three social standards is part of their roadmap for the immediate future - and needs to be effected quickly, since, if they want to complete in the CRM market, this level of channel integration is becoming de rigueur.

Their roadmap also calls for improvements in the UI which is colorful but a bit heavy and mobile and HTML5 clients, both important and smart choices for a near future release.

The Business Model

While we can't begin to cover the number of features/functions that are inherent in this nearly complete product, and while we think extraordinarily highly of the product itself and the exacting standards that FreeCRM places on the development and quality of the product, we do have several concerns with the business model and the marketing.

Their business model is centered on the freemium idea. The actual difference between free and paid subscriptions isn't features though. The Pro version and the Free version have nearly the same fundamental functionality with the only differences being that you get up to 50 users for the free version and more limited storage and records. Beyond 50 users, you have to pay $14.95 per user/month and you do get some added functionality, though the vital stuff is part of the Free version too. What you are paying for primarily is the level of support and maintenance ranging from a minimum standard of customer support for $19.95/user/month to $24.95/user/month for premium support. If you care to, you can add voice functionality (they call it VoiceCRM) to the premium support for their top priced $39.95 month.

We feel that this model is inherently problematic because they are giving away too much functionality for nothing. Even the name of the product "FreeCRM" puts the customers in a frame of mind that says, freemium is good enough, impacting their potential revenue. Additionally, 50 users for free is more than most small companies will ever need. Support alone shouldn't be the difference. We suggest that some of the more vital feature set be part of the Pro version only.

Additionally, for a company with 220,000 customers, they have little market impact, though hopefully, their participation in CRM Idol will begin to address that in some way. Their marketing tends too strongly toward the functionality of the product and not how it helps the customers do the jobs they need to do.

Final Thoughts

All the concerns aside, FreeCRM competes as a product with any SaaS based CRM product out there when it comes to features and functions. The care that the staff has taken to be as functionally complete as they are and as flaw-free as they can be is something to be applauded. If they can fix their business model and dramatically improve their marketing, they could be a serious player in the SMB CRM market.

RelayWare

Partner relationship management (PRM) has gone in and out of style as much as Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. PRM is the branch of CRM that does the hard work of managing indirect sales channels for vendors that prefer to sell through distributors and resellers. There are good reasons for the channel and many of us forget that about half of technology sales go through the indirect channel including the business-to-business side of the equation. It can be confusing for the consumer - the Apple Store is a direct channel but Best Buy is indirect. Go figure.

Demand for PRM, or at least the attention it gets, is partly driven by where an industry is in its renewable lifecycle. Attention is low when categories are new because the vendors need to employ direct sales forces to drive a missionary message. Demand for PRM rises as the market becomes familiar with a category and the vendor looks to cut costs by managing a channel rather than an in-house sales team. We are in one of those periods when PRM is back in style.

PRM vendors have come and gone in the last decade but RelayWare is one with staying power and one of the most complete solution sets in the business. Founded in 2000 near Oxford, UK, RelayWare has changed significantly. The entity today employs forty people, is privately held and they say profitable. It addresses an international market and is headed by CEO Mike Morgan who led a management buyout a few years back and moved part of the company from Oxford to Redwood Shores, CA. The company also eats its own dog food and has a distributor in Singapore though historically it used a direct model to sell its solution. Importantly RelayWare is not a modified CRM system, PRM is their only business.

Interestingly, the company claims that PRM is inherently social (they may be right, but...) and uses this to claim ten years of social involvement. There is social and there is social and we saw little evidence of what might be more commonly thought of as social in the product though it is on their road map.

RelayWare has built a solution that encompasses the basics of managing a channel along with the extras that channel managers have come to depend on. They told us that they have application support for every phase of the partner lifecycle and we concur. Often there is no analog in CRM for what PRM does and that is why CRM is often inappropriate for managing the channel.

For instance, managing market development funds is a big deal in the channel. Partners are given amounts of money by the OEM for marketing programs based on their past success. Awarding this money and tracking results is a part of channel management that vendors must have. So is lead registration. In conventional CRM or SFA a lead might be assigned to a representative in a territory and often those two things are the same. However, in a channel partner territories may overlap and a partner always wants a way to make the lead uniquely its own. At the same time, the OEM wants the lead aggressively pursued and the OEM needs a way to track if the partner is indeed pursuing it. So deal registration works in both directions and neatly demonstrates the multi-directional nature of PRM.

RelayWare has gone well beyond the basics of PRM. Because the company has been in the business and invested in its product line for a long time it has a distinct advantage over some of its newer competition. CEO Mike Morgan is a self described channel guy who understand the unique demands of vendor life in the channel. Nothing demonstrates this better than RelayWare's approach to analytics. In addition to offering basic reporting capabilities up and down the channel, RelayWare also offers a special service to its customers. It strips out identifying information in its data and analyzes it to develop metrics across its universe. Individual vendors can then compare their own performances against these metrics to see how well their organizations perform or where they need to improve.

RelayWare has done a good job of building a complete product set for PRM and we think their approach will carry forward so they get high marks for vision. The briefing was solid though we dealt with a minor login problem. No matter, the demo suffered from a condition that we have seen in other briefings as well. The vendor spent too much time on tactics - "this is how you enter data" - rather than on how the product advances the business aims of the customer. Business aims were better covered in a presentation but the demo and presentation have to synchronize with one reinforcing the other. The demo would improve with greater attention to the business issues.

We believe demand for PRM is likely to increase as market conditions continue to favor situations where innovation happens within the category rather than through developing net new categories. We're likely to see a plethora of product line extensions that will only make sense when specialized partners bring them into relevant customer situations. This is something the channel excels at provided it has the tools to manage all the data it is likely to churn up. This should mean good times ahead for PRM.

SplendidCRM

SplendidCRM was founded in 2005 by Paul Rony and a group of fellow engineers looking to create an alternative solution to SugarCRM but using Microsoft technologies. The company is still privately held and funded by sales. SplendidCRM is primarily formed by an engineering team with a focus on software development looking to develop an open-source solution using Microsoft technologies.

The company's main markets are small businesses and companies with small IT departments that are looking for a generic CRM solution that it is based on a Microsoft stack. The product is written using the C# language. Within this market they have customers in different industries from healthcare to government. They also have a national and international network of resellers that help develop and sell vertical solutions.

The product has all the main components you can expect from any full-featured CRM system with its respective sales, marketing and support modules. Source code is provided with the solution and integrates with key Microsoft technologies:

Report Design Language

Rules Engine

Workflow Engine

Exchange Server Synchronization

Microsoft Outlook Add-in

Microsoft Word Add-in

Besides providing MS Exchange integration, SplendidCRM also integrates with Google Apps and Paypal. Mobile applications for the iPhone, iPad and Android are under development. The only available social CRM functionality is the ability to use Facebook Connect to login into the application. Social CRM functionalities are part of the roadmap, but SplendidCRM's customers are not asking yet for any social CRM functionality according to Rony.

SplendidCRM has the same tiers of editions as SugarCRM: community, professional and enterprise, but a full-featured edition is available under the on-premise option. The enterprise edition (SaaS) is $40.00 per user/month and the on-premise edition is $480.00 per user/year and it includes support and upgrades. A minimum of 10 users is required. The community live edition (SaaS) is $10.00 per user/month and the on-premise is free using the open-source option.

SplendidCRM is definitely less expensive than SugarCRM and other CRM solutions, and it is packed with many CRM functionalities. This is a good thing for them. However, SplendidCRM's problem is that they just want to be like SugarCRM. This is not a good thing. SplendidCRM needs to innovate and be just more than an open source CRM solution based on Microsoft technologies. One way to accomplish this is by providing industry templates for vertical solutions and integration with other solutions such as email marketing and social media management. And besides selling the solution to IT departments, SplendidCRM needs to reach the sales and marketing decision makers. The full-featured functionality that comes out-of-the-box needs to be known by other decision makers beside the IT department.

If you need a less expensive solution than SugarCRM and need open-source in a Microsoft environment, SplendidCRM should be considered as an option to evaluate.

SugarCRM has a free open source version, so the only advantage that SplendidCRM has is the pure Microsoft stack.

Cosential

Subject matter expertise....matters. One of the benefits of a CRM related application or service in a specific vertical is that the successful applications take the terms, processes and of course, best practices and even the psychology of the industry and its practitioners into account when they are being built. The danger is that if it isn't diligent about the special circumstances in its industry, a vertical application might just take some of that into account, usually just the terms, without an understanding of what the differences are between that specific industry and pretty much every other one.

There is no lack of expertise and domain knowledge in Cosential, a CRM vertical solution for the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry.

Cosential was founded in 1996 by industry veterans with 25 years of experience each in the AEC industry. Their customer list is a who's who in the AEC world with customers like Hensel Phillips who have 1200+ seats to Tishman with more than 200 seats. All in all they have 700 customers with over 38,000 users.

They have a SaaS based delivery and pricing model. They run $2/mo/user for a read only relationship to the system - though who would want that is beyond us. Then they run $60/user/month for complete read/write access to the system with all functionality turned on. They have a $30/user/month subscription for their CRM "piece" which they call Contact Management, but for once, that Contact Management is used wrongly because they have all the CRM functionality rather than little of it, which is normally the case when Contact Management is called CRM.

Their competition in the market, who tend to be much larger players, are not really competing with them because they are pricing deals both on premise and at a level of hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not even occasionally millions. Cosential gets the companies that don't want to pay the high ticket implementation costs and instead prefer a manageable, not as costly, still robust implementation. So where the competition isn't, Cosential is. This means that they have a good repeatable revenue stream in a large marketplace which has room for both the high ticket and subscription models.

That domain expertise is apparent inside what is arguably a complete application that covers not only the essential traditional CRM functionality - sales, marketing and customer service, but also the more industry specific project management capabilities baked into the application proposal collaboration, development and automation that is geared toward large project development, including one feature that we found particularly smart - a go/no go bidding tool.

The overall toolset is exceptionally powerful but what adds to the huge benefit that this product provides to its AEC niche is the level of sophisticated well thought out integrations. For example, it integrates with Lawson, JD Edwards, Oracle and Deltek among the most recognizable names when it comes to financial systems. It also integrates with McGraw-Hill Dodge, FedBizOpps.gov and IMC (among others) for lead sourcing. It also integrates with Parature for customer service; Google Calendar and Docs for collaboration and even Evernote for personal productivity. For data sourcing, LinkedIn, Hoovers and even the US Post Office. In other words, they've thought the end to end processes for winning, executing and servicing deals in the AEC sector, and allowed for all possibilities and all necessary sourcing and skills. Their reporting engine, something that is of obvious importance to companies involved in bidding and building large construction projects uses an internal reporting engine or, if you have high levels of complexity necessary for your reports, either industry-standard Crystal Reports or Jasper reports, both via web services and Jasper particularly, in the cloud.

Much of their integration (though not all) is done through their Integration Exchange, which allows for relatively easy 3rd party integrations through the use of a web services API.

Since this is a CRM Idol contest not an AEC Idol contest or ERP Idol, we took a look at their sales and marketing capabilities and found that the sales capabilities are full-featured and the marketing functional if not somewhat basic in nature with email marketing, lead scoring, some campaign management, among a few other capabilities.

Their interface is decent and clean looking though somewhat 1.0 - which is neither good nor bad, merely a statement. While the interface is more or less easy to understand, there is a learning curve that their users will have to go through to understand, if not use, the vast functionality this system provides and the navigation isn't intuitive. That said, their dashboard, which has what we presume are Ajax-enabled drag and drop, interactivity and drill down functionality is very nicely done.

One strong feature that we were impressed with is their enterprise-wide search capability which is a phonetics based search engine designed to overcome misspelling and poor data entry. It searches their internal data repositories and knowledge bases and also is able to go out and look at external sources - at the moment, just LinkedIn. Given the complexity of some construction projects and the multiple sources of information they touch, this is particularly valuable and helps overcome some of the human issues that large amounts of data are subject to.

Despite all this goodness, we do have some concerns. First, their architecture is Cold Fusion based - a development platform that still exists from the mid-90s that's becoming increasingly dated, even though Adobe is still producing constantly more robust versions of it. Despite their well thought out use of web services APIs, Java, and HTML5 etc. they are going to have to keep up with the more contemporary architectures in order to continue to compete. They've made it clear that they aren't going to rearchitect the application, so they'll have to just make sure they incorporate the more modern platforms and services as they go. But it does remain a concern to us.

Additionally, their social integration beyond LinkedIn is non-existent, something that they are acutely aware of. Their roadmap reflects social as their most important priority one that we think needs to be done sooner than later. We'll take a look next year and see how they did.

Finally, they need to temper their marketing claims. While clearly they are AEC domain experts to an admirable level, their website professes that "Cosential is the most advanced CRM and marketing automation product on the market," a comparison that is way out of line on the face of it, and shouldn't even be made given that they represent a specific vertical industry and this implies a lot more than a single vertical in their claim.

However, even with these concerns, this is one of the best thought through and complete vertical applications that we've seen in quite a while, including the bulk of the CRM components.